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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




JOSEPH CULLEN ROOT 

Founder of all Woodcraft 



UNVEILING 
TRIBUTES 



B. 



LEWELL C. BUTLER 




1909 

Press of Brandon Printing Company 

Nashville 



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Copyright 1909, by Lewell C. Butler 



©CL A 251985 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Brief History of the Order 7 

Introductory 11 

Unveilings — 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 13 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 19 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 25 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 31 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 37 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 45 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 51 

A Tribute to a Sovereign , 59 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 67 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 73 

A Tribute to a Sovereign 79 

A Tribute to Two Sovereigns 87 

A Tribute to Three Sovereigns 93 

Decorations — 

Annual 99 

Annual 107 



Respectfully dedicated to my Honored Father: no 
truer Sovereign has ever labored in the Forests of 
Woodcraft. 

Lewell C. Butler. 



BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ORDER 

Resulting from a conference held on June 3, 1890, at Omaha, 
Nebraska, the Woodmen of the World was organized. Sovereign 
Joseph Cullen Root, the present Sovereign Commander, extended 
the invitation, to which nine men, well known for their business 
abilities, responded. The Sovereign Camp was organized a year 
later, and now embraces practically all of the States in the Union 
except those in the Pacific Jurisdiction. 

The Order is now composed of three Jurisdictions, viz: Sover- 
eign, Pacific, and Canadian. 

The Canadian Jurisdiction was permitted in 1890 by an Act of 
the Parliament of the Dominion, and is one of the very few fraternal 
life insurance societies permitted under the rigid insurance laws of 
Canada. Its members are known as "Sovereigns," and its features 
and ritual are practically the same as those of the Sovereign Camp, 
but its financial management and its funds are separate from the 
Sovereign Camp. Its headquarters are at London, Ontario. 

The Pacific Jurisdiction is under the management of a Head 
Camp composed of duly elected delegates from the subordinate 
camps. Its features and ritual are practically the same as those 
adopted by the Sovereign Camp, and its members are called "Neigh- 
bors." Its financial affairs are independent, having a beautiful 
home at Denver, Colorado. 

The Sovereign Jurisdiction is governed by its constitution and 
laws, its affairs being in the hands of the Sovereign Camp and the 
Executive Council. Subordinate camps elect delegates to their 
respective Head Camps (composed of one or more States) and Head 
Camps choose representatives to the Sovereign Camp, which holds 
sessions biennially at various cities. Any beneficiary member of 
the Order in good standing is eligible to the highest office within the 
gift of the Order. 

The members of the Sovereign Jurisdiction are required to carry 
life insurance in a sum not less than $500.00 nor more than $3,000.00, 
and at death all losses are promptly paid. At the grave of each 



8 BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ORDER 

departed member a monument is erected by the Sovereign Camp 
at a cost of $100.00. These monuments are usually unveiled, 
with fitting ceremonies provided in the ritual, and whenever practi- 
cable an orator is called to deliver an unveiling tribute. 

For admission into the Order, sound health, exemplary habits 
and good character are required. Persons engaged in certain occu- 
pations are barred. A strict medical examination of the applicant 
is made and report thereof must be approved by the Sovereign Phy- 
sicians. The amount of insurance obtainable is limited or prohib- 
ited in unhealthful sections. The candidate is balloted on after 
careful investigating committees have made reports as to his charac- 
ter and eligibility. 

Total disability benefits are paid to a member reaching seventy 
years of age, equalling one-tenth of his policy per annum. Ample 
and adequate assessment rates are charged, striking a safe and happy 
medium between the excessive premiums of the life insurance com- 
panies and the inadequate charges of the primitive , current rate 
assessment societies. These rates have more than met all death 
losses and all operating expenses, and the constantly increasing 
balance is being at all times safely and profitably invested, thereby 
composing a Reserve or Emergency Fund of many millions for use 
at that time inevitable to all such societies when the percentage of 
death losses will increase with the age of the Order. These funds 
are already so enormous that members are assured against any mate- 
rial raise of rates for many years. Members are received between 
the ages of eighteen and fifty-two. 

The headquarters of the Sovereign Jurisdiction are at Omaha, 
Nebraska, in a magnificent home owned by the Order. The sal- 
aries of the officers and current expenses of the Order are compar- 
atively small. 

Since the organization of the Woodmen of the World, its progress 
and growth have been unequalled. Its increase in membership has 
been the most marvelous ever known in any secret organization. Its 
phenomenal growth can find no parallel in all fraternal history. 
Its financial condition has steadily soared until it is no longer an 
untried institution, but to-day is recognized as perhaps the strongest 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 9 

fraternal insurance society in the world. No secret order does more 
for charity, none does more to aid the living, and none has ever 
approached its record in marking the graves of the dead. 

The many wise provisions of its Constitution are too numerous 
to explain, but guarantee to the Order perpetual prosperity. To 
point out the solidity of its business principles, the organic features 
on which it rests and the mutual advantages resulting to the individ- 
ual members, would be an undertaking almost as impossible as an 
attempt to enumerate the inestimable blessings of the Federal Con- 
stitution. The Order has profited by the experiences of similar 
organizations, and is completely safeguarded against the disasters so 
fatal to many of its unfortunate forerunners. 

The Woodmen Circle is an auxiliary that likewise erects monu- 
ments and has insurance features. The plan of its government is 
very similar to the Order. Its reserve fund is rapidly increasing. 
Many thousands of the most splendid women of the land are among 
its membership. 

The Boys of Woodcraft is another important auxiliary, engaged 
in preparing young men under the age of eighteen for the benefits 
of Woodcraft. 

The Uniform Rank has gradually developed until it now compares 
quite favorably with regular military bodies. Thousands of Wood- 
men to-day, without additional training, are able to enter the regular 
army, if need be, and defend their country, as the Order teaches. 

To the rank and file of Woodcraft is due much of the credit for 
its greatness, but the durability of every structure largely depends 
on the skill and foresight of the builder. Thus to Sovereign J. C. 
Root and his able advisers must an admiring and appreciative pub- 
lic express its lasting gratitude. With him must be mentioned 
above all others such noblemen as Colonel B. Wood Jewell, and 
Sovereigns F. A. Falkenburg, John T. Yates, F. F. Roose, and C. C. 
Farmer. Honors must be acknowledged due also to every Woodman 
who has ever held an office in the Sovereign Camp, especially those 
of the later day, as follows: W. A. Fraser, Morris Sheppard, H. F. 
Simrall, D. E. Bradshaw, N. B. Maxey, J. E. Fitzgerald, L. Q. Raw- 
son, E. B. Lewis, and T. E. Paxton. 



INTRODUCTORY 

The Head Camp Officers of Jurisdiction "N" (comprising the 
State of Louisiana) of the Woodmen of the World, venture to offer 
to the members of the Order and to the public generally fifteen 
short addresses. We realize that a great demand exists for speak- 
ers at the frequent unveilings of monuments and decorations of 
graves. The Head Camp finds it impossible to supply an orator 
for each unveiling or decoration, and quite often a camp is without 
an available speaker for such occasions. This condition almost 
daily confronts camps in all of the Jurisdictions, Pacific, Canadian 
and Sovereign. 

The need of a standard work or book from which unveiling and 
decoration tributes may be appropriately selected and read or com- 
mitted to memory, has long been great. We have therefore secured 
the consent of our Esteemed Head Clerk, Sovereign Lewell C. Butler, 
of Shreveport, Louisiana, to permit us to embody in book form a 
small collection of extracts from many such addresses delivered by 
him on behalf of the Order. It will be observed that some one of the 
following addresses will be applicable to any occasion of the kind 
and can be fittingly used by omission of the parenthetical parts 
and with appropriate insertions, alterations and omissions. 

This publication is made by us not only for a guide and for the 
use of those camps who find themselves without a speaker for their 
ceremonies, but for the further purpose of supplying the member- 
ship and the reading public with a work which we hope will aid 
materially in making more keen the appreciation of our membership 
for the monument feature of the Order of Woodcraft, and to dis- 
play to the outside world the fullness of a Woodman's memory. 
All of the following orations contain eulogies to the Order as well 
as to the departed members. 

With some trepidation, and prompted only by the urgent need for 
such a compilation, we submit these scraps, taken by us from some 
of the leading orations of Sovereign Butler, as published in the 



12 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

newspapers and elsewhere, and we do not — since he will not permit 
us to do so — present them as a literary production worthy of con- 
sideration. 

We believe, notwithstanding, that Sovereign Butler's eulogies, as 
gathered by us after a hasty collection of his scattered notes and dis- 
connected fragments, will, even in their unpolished shape, be of 
great advantage to the well-instructed Woodman as well as being 
of interest to those not versed in the mysteries of Woodcraft. 

For the good of the Order, we are 

Fraternally and respectfully, 

A. B. Booth, Head Consul. 

A. J. Bethancourt, Head Advisor. 

H. L. Nick, Head Banker. 

G. A. Connolly, Head Escort. 

C. B. DeBellevue, Head Watchman. 

Gus Kuhnert, Head Sentry. 

L. R. Powers, Head Manager 

A. F. Babin, Head Manager. 

P. G. Wilbert, Head Manager. 

H. G. Reimers, Head Manager. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




He scaled the mountain of goodwill, and, 
climbing to its loftiest heights, he left all scorn 
and envious hatred far below. 



Again we pause to look into the grave — to contemplate the 
phenomenon of death — to guess at its indistinctness and 
confusion. 

A man — a citizen — an American, lies dead before us. He lived 
and died as many millions lived before, but in that life the sun was 
never darkened, the brightness never waned, and when the mists 
and clouds would come and storms conceal the stars from view, this 
Sovereign saw the light of glory beyond the purple hills. With gen- 
erous words and loving deeds he filled the passing hours. 

He journeyed from his mother's arms to death's embrace, and 
now upon his brow is set the seal of perfect peace. 

Zealous in his commendation, gentle in reproof, he spoke no ill 
of his fellow man — he heeded not the slanderer's tongue, but when 
the unkind word was spoken, he found complacence in the golden 
mead of silence and of doubt. Remaining speechless always when 
he saw a sinful deed performed, he judged his fellows as he would be 
judged. 

He had a rare and noble loyalty of heart for friends whom his 
discernment helped him to select and choose. There was nothing 
doubtful in his love, nothing patronizing, nothing exacting, but his 
preferment for the true and brave glowed clearly as the sun. 

He was a pattern of consistent gallantry — deferent to man as 
well as woman — respecting equally beauty and homeliness — paying 
proper homage alike to youth and age. 

He was industrious, tireless and ever-alert. He did not pass the 
days in idleness and aimless dreams. He did not dwell on those 
illusions that nourish discontent. He never waited for an inspira- 
tion nor languished in an irksome solitude, but gathered from the 
crumbling hours their sweetest fruit. He always seemed to know 
the mode of doing that which pointed to his highest aim. 

Among his most noteworthy qualities were abounding life and 
irrepressible humor. Unhesitating and versatile in his conversation, 



1 6 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

he always had a ready answer. The influence of his society was 
refining and uplifting. 

He died in the prime of illustrious manhood; a gentleman of 
honor and of dignity, of courtesy and chivalry, and guided by the 
highest dictates of integrity and duty. He represented the noblest 
type of American manhood, the purest flower of the race. 

Free from perfidy and guile — above the littleness of caprice — 
this man embraced the fortifying virtues of the age. Possessed of 
a coolness of mind and serenity of counsel, his ways and words 
had nothing of the harsh and cold. Prudent, sensible, sagacious 
and keen, he mingled talents and capacity with terser wisdom and 
understanding. His heart was full of sympathy and love. He scaled 
the mountain of goodwill, and climbing to its loftiest heights, he left 
all scorn and envious hatred far below. 

A sense of duty and of wrong — a love of humor and of wit — an 
aptitude in talents born from insight into nature — all these con- 
tributed in liberal measure to model and enrich this man's accom- 
plished mind. 

Unlike the knave who makes the interest of the public subser- 
vient to his own, he suffered every individual inconvenience for the 
public good. He consecrated every energy to the welfare of his 
town and State. He sought to aid the toiling masses, and nobly 
advocated universal brotherhood and love. 

He had that magnanimity of heart that sought and craved no 
ostentation — that quiet, gentle charity that looks not for the appro- 
bation of the many or the few — that sheds its brightest lustre like 
the flower, born to blush unseen. His was a generous and a loving 
soul, the joy of every Woodman's heart, the pride of every eye. 

He furnished a gigantic spectacle to the sympathetic world — an 
example worthy of our emulation. He met his friends with smiles 
and hearty greetings. He never seemed dejected or distressed. Even 
in the hour of death his face was beaming with refulgent joy. 

was handsome. His deep, rich voice was as sweet 

as music. His eyes were full of laughter and of cheer. His acts in 
life defied attack and challenged boundless admiration. That 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 1 7 

comely grace of justice in his heart, outrivalling the noblest attri- 
butes of man, renders his memory imperishable. 

A man of broad and liberal mind, with depth of thought and 
keenness of perception, with faculties, sharp-edged, unbiased and 
impartial — imbued with honor's highest excellence — instilled with 
virtues womanly and pure, he accepted life without complaining — 
appreciated every good — resisted every tempting evil; not wholly 
faultless, it is true, but none are faultless that are human. 

He lavished friendship on the needy. 

What he accomplished was due to his individual effort. He met 
obstacles in his path, far greater than some of his closest friends 
have ever known. All credit to the man who pushes on, undaunted 
by the barriers in the way! 

This actor in the play of life assumed his part. He spoke his 
lines and then retired. He acted without cue or prompter and knew 
not when the scene would close. His first act — infancy and youth — 
was played in comedy and mirth; the next, we saw his solemn 
drama and pathetic heart; and finally, as the curtain fell, and he 
was hidden from our view, the plot of life had been disclosed, and 
had developed into deepest tragedy and profoundest grief. 

How liberal were his views! Hemmed not within the pale of 
things believed and lessons taught — from out behind the barriers of 
fear and fashion and accepted truth, he let his genius spirit reckless 
roam ! Giving to new ideas his careful thought and seeking always 
to discern the truth of new assertions, he proved to be a man of 
absolutely independent mind. Despite this fact, his Christian 
spirit and abiding faith were never shaken. His creed was stead- 
fast to the end. 

He asked to be allowed to do no sweeter labor than that per- 
formed for fellow man. (He was the champion of the common 
people). He pointed out the safest path to all who sought his splen- 
did counsel. He longed to see the entire world alike in love, religion 
and in deed. 

If the story of the Maker were untrue; if the promised land were 
but a myth to mould the minds of babes and children; if teachings 
of the future world were meant alone to bend the coward's knee, and 



l8 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

heaven and hell were but traditions; even if the life below ends life 
forever, and in the grave is buried all, a life like his is still the life 
most fit to live. Rewards of earth will justify. We do not need to 
scan the stars to find repayment for a life like this. The world will 
shower its abundance here below. Such lives deserve the grandest 
tributes that mankind can bestow. 

Requiescat in pace 

Farewell, until we meet again! 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




He crossed that sea whose skies were never 
marred by outlines of returning ships, and on 
whose waves unanchored barks drift always to 
the west. 



MY friends, a lavish eulogium is not praise, but nothing could 
be said of him of which he was unworthy — no words of 
approbation but would become the man in memory of whom 
we now convene. In fact and truth he was a kind and loving father, 
a patient husband, a worthy neighbor and a sincere man. This is 
enough. His name, of this alone, will be remembered. He leaves 
not in the memory of his wife or children the record of an unjust 
deed. 

He won and held our admiration by his constant labor and un- 
swerving work. Possessed of those praiseworthy attributes — deter- 
mination, courage, fortitude and fidelity, there was, nor is, no better 
man. We extol his piety, veracity and self-sacrifice. Pleasant and 
familiar in conversation, cheerful, affable and kind, he made his 
nature rich by seeming always free from care. 

His regulating principle in life was usefulness and doing good. 
It filled his heart with gladness. It gave to him that joy which is, 
I think, by far more deep and sweet and all-embracing than any 
other the heart can know. To those who knew him, his soul chanted 
out the melody of its simple greatness. 

He was a lover of the forests, both natural and fraternal. Often 
have we seen him go for his vacation to the woods — woods like these 
around us now, where in the air is wafted the sweet perfume of sum- 
mer flowers. 

He loved the haze, the soft south breeze, the wild wind moaning 
over wintry waves, the tough-leaved oaks, the swaying pines, the 
yellow daffodils and dew-drop covered moss and vine. 

How appropriate to bury him among the scenes he knew and 
loved! He loved the warbling mocking-bird that imitates its feath- 
ered tribe. He sorrowed for the purple dove that cooed the sadness 
of its widowhood. He loved the spring and all its thousand fancied 
things that make the landscape rich and grand — that tuned the mind 
to thoughts of love and filled the world with joy. He loved the 



22 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

mighty pageantry of the forests — the twittering swallow on the 
swinging spray, the conversation of the breeze, the deep discoursing 
of autumnal winds. 

Allured to nature as the columbine attracts the gentle bee, he 
loved the rolling table-lands and serried plains and velvet foliage 
of the creeping vine. He loved the plants expanding leaves and 
petals poising in the air. He loved the moon's translucent light — 
its lustre mirrored by the silvery streams, — the topmost hedges filled 
with snow, and drifting banks where whiffs of wind swept 'round 
and played to leave the snow-hills ribboned and engraved. He loved 
to walk the ocean's beach upon symmetric seams of sand, with mas- 
sive rocks and cragged cliffs above, and listen to the rumbling of 
sonorous billows shoreward bound. 

He loved the great fraternal world, where love of fellow man 
composes all. He loved it for its splendid teachings. He loved the 
Woodmen of the World, because of their devotion, man for man, 
and Sovereign for home. Woodcraft says: "We take care of the 
widow, we take care of the orphan, we protect them from the winter's 
whine." 

He loved the business and commercial world, because such world 
is necessary to the common weal. 

In all these worlds this Sovereign was a light sublime. When 
friends and neighbors all deserted and social leaders turned from 
humbleness in scorn, this Sovereign was at hand, consoling. He 
craved no higher privilege than to share his earnings with a friend 
in need. He asked to be allowed to aid. 

These things — this great devotion — we now, as Woodmen, would 
repay. Alas, it is too late to do so in substantial measure, but we 
would offer memory in recompense. 'Tis all that we can give him 
now. Though others pass him by unnoticed, this band of Wood- 
men will remember. Since death has taken him in its embrace, we see 
to-day these faithful Choppers, emerging from the forest fastnesses 
their spears and axes laid aside, to form a wedge around this monu- 
ment of Honor and Remembrance. Honor to the living! Remem- 
brance to the dead! and Love for those he leaves behind him! As 
long as reason holds its sway, his name will be dear to the hearts of all 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 23 

Woodmen, and until the silent granite-piece that towers here shall 
crumble, his name will be perpetuated around our sacred seal. 

The thoughts conveyed by human words are feeble. We must 
appeal in silence to our inner beings. The wonder is that simple 
words can tell so much. If to-day we could exhaust the almost end- 
less passages of language — could speak with all the eloquence of 
the orators of old, our sentiments of memory would still remain 
inadequately spoken. No tongue can tell the feelings of the wounded 
heart. Our love, our memory, is untold. 

A husband and a father! He quit the burden of his earthly days. 
He's gone to join the seraph voices singing in the cedar groves, 
whereon the sun forever shines, where music fills the verdant boughs, 
and golden fruits and silvery leaves bespeak the presence of eternal 
gladness. He is there to-day. He will be there to-morrow, and 
forever. 

Justice placed its kiss upon his brow and Courage folded him in 
loving arms. He crossed that sea whose skies were never marred 
by outlines of returning ships, and on whose waves unanchored barks 
drift always to the west. 

We have consigned the last remains of this beloved Sovereign 
back to the lap of earth. The gentle, sympathetic winds will sing 
their midnight services. 

With grass, with weeds, with constant sun and changing moon, 
with shifting clouds and falling rains, farewell! We give your sacred 
dust to clod and clay, and now unveil your monument. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




He loved the flag — the stars end stripes — 
for Woodcraft and for country. 



Again Death's angel comes among us. We have been visited 
by Him who reaps and always plucks the fairest flower Jf We 
therefore meet to speak our sentiments and love as Sovereigns. 

Another Woodman, fatigued with labors, and wearied of his 
heavy burdens, has gone to sleep; the unused portion of the path of 
life awaits him still. 

This man who had no fear in life was not afraid to die; true and 
noble, brave and good, generous and charitable — he loved the music 
of laughter, the warm grasp of the friendly hand, the sparkle of the 
eye. 

His sense of duty was not gilded by a hope of gain. He was 
richer in the blessedness of his own contentment than all the oriental 
kings and queens, rich-robed and crowned. 

He was a man who shunned the vulgar and impure, and sought to 
win a favored place in every neighbor's heart. He was generous to 
those who wronged him — forgiving of all who, prompted by the force 
of evil, committed sins. He knew that in the wicked wretch were 
sowed the seeds of good. He made allowance for the eccentricities 
and frailties of the human race, and thought the wayward only feeble- 
minded men misled. 

Within the narrow compass of his life his courage and devotion 
to the cause of right were fully proved. His tenderness was as deep 
and beautiful as his compassion and sympathy were wide. He 
thought that charity was the sum of all the virtues, that tears of pity 
were divine, that mercy's key unlocked the heart's most sacred 
chambers. 

He sided with the poor and weak and held an outstretched hand 
to those who came to him for aid; he knew that circumstances alter 
cases — that often, time and place and opportunity contribute much 
to mould and shape the character of men. He knew that those whom 
fate has thrust upon life's roughened pathway, where thorns and 
stones must tear and bruise, will in the journey suffer harm. He 



28 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

knew that children, pure as snow and fondled in their mother's 
arms, must shape their natures by the pattern of surrounding things. 
Accordingly, he overlooked, forgot, condoned. 

We loved his personal character and domestic life. He was a 
gracious being, tenderly devoted to sister, mother, father, friend. 
Simple, dignified and courteous, he held our admiration and esteem. 
His affection and fidelity were unvarying and remarkable. 

He frankly avowed a religious faith. He heartily favored lib- 
erty and espoused the principles of freedom, in person, action, word 
and deed. His mind was dispassionate, broad and calm; his de- 
portment was adapted to his place and station. His liberal views 
were never hushed or checked by any patronage of voice or favor. 
Serenely unconscious of his own heroic courage and unhesitating 
fearlessness, he fully proved to all except himself that he was brave. 
He was a zealous patriot, pure in heart. His gentle disposition and 
amiable manners, his open candor and natural modesty were appar- 
ent to all. 

He united to the advantage of a commanding appearance a grace 
of person and an individual and distinctively peculiar charm; pleas- 
ant and unreserved, frank and outspoken — always precise and clear, 
at times emphatic and even picturesque — his philosophy was broad, 
his determination unflinching. He was aggressive in his own opin- 
ions, vigorous and young. Combining the elements of truth and 
justice he felt dishonor like a sting. 

He was enlisted as a soldier. He loved the flag — the stars and 
stripes — for Woodcraft and for country. He fought the battles of 
his life successfully, until at last his weapons failed — his armor fell 
upon the ground and his breast was bared unto the sword of Death, 
the enemy invincible, against whose march he planned and fought 
so bravely and so well. 

Soldier, to you it is the hour of midnight. The sound of taps 
has fallen on the foggy air. Your dreams will never be disturbed 
by the dreadful screaming of the shots above. The foe can never 
reach you here. This barricade is insurmountable and inconquer- 
able; the fortress called the grave will never fall. The rumoring air 
brings not the rife of coming conflict. The morning's reveille will 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 20, 

not command you to the sergeant's call. Your fellows will march on 
to fight the adversary Death, while you lay down the arms so valiantly 
wielded and surrender now. One by one your brave survivors will 
be vanquished in their turn. 

(Peaceful in life, helpless in death, forsaken and beyond our 
aid, we lay your bayonet and gun unbuckled by your side. We will 
not leave you shorn of all defense, since you must walk unguarded 
and alone into the lands where friends or foes may be encamping.) 

In the skirmishes of life he was a gallant soldier — a fearless 
warrior. Enrolled in the army of justice, he marched through hard- 
ships to a splendid victory; and when the enemies of right were con- 
quered by his hand and power, and when the persecutors of the 
oppressed and weak were left flesh-torn and bleeding on the field, 
his were the generous hands extended — his were the words of cheer. 

He was compelled to leave his home and all his many loving 
friends and lose the memory of the pleasant days that golden-winged 
have fled. 

There is no future life whose doors are closed to such as he, nor 
shall the stream of a life like this flow to an evil sea. 

'Mid clouds and darkness, into the closing folds of night, his 
spirit sank to rest. From the fountain of eternal peace that spirit 
drinks repose. His body moulders on the breast of earth, mixed 
with the elements. His name, his deeds, will never fade — are such 
that time can not efface nor lapse of years destroy. 

This monument, erected by the Woodmen of the World, stands 
as a tribute to his memory, and bears, like many thousands of its 
kind, the emblems of the Order. To-day its beauty is displayed — 
the veil is raised that we may see it, that you may read it, that the 
blessed sunlight may shine upon it. 

A fitting ceremony has been held, denoting that we honor those 
he left behind, and hold his memory as a treasure. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




To know him better was to love him more. 



On a beautiful day like this, how sweet it is to gather^here, 
beneath this lovely, clear, blue sky, to witness a spectacle 
so solemn and impressive as has been offered in the name 
of Memory. FgJ 

The mechanism of a life is broken, a brilliant mind has ceased to 
work, a ready hand is shorn of all its deftness and a soul has been 
deprived of human habitation. It lives above. 

was a man of splendid physique — perfect as 

the classic Greek was he in form. Independent in demeanor, tall and 
imposing, he stood erect, and in submission bowed his head to Death 
alone. He bore the stamp of courage on his face. Of rare and 
attractive personality, his broad proportions instinctively arrested 
the stranger's eye and kindled within him a desire to better know the 
man. To know him better was to love him more. 

A child of nature's noblest work, born out among the trees, he 
loved the things inanimate. He loved the children of the sun and 
soil — the bush, the weed, the grass. He watched the dexterous 
seasons change and felt the thrill of coming spring, when all the 
autumn's harmonies of brown transformed into a galaxy of gay and 
green, and Nature, re-astir from winter's sleep, put on its robe of gold. 
He saw November's withered leaves and blossomed foliage yellowed 
by the sultry days, the stem of the lily bend and break and sink 
before the zephyr's sigh, the vine's caressing tendrils wilt, and burrs 
and buds and masts of beech and oak and maple fall. He loved the 
quiet, tranquil woods, the silent shadows of the deepening jungles, 
the beech — moss-clad upon the windward side, the tossing sprays 
of angry floods, and all the joining jubilees of earth at evening's 
runic play. He loved the cry of fowl, the bark of fox, the howl of 
wolf, the eagle's scream, the murmuring brook, the subtle fragrance 
of the moss and leaves, the hum of honey-gathering bees, the chirp 
of infants in aerial nests. He loved the raven's cry; the pensive, 



34 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

whistling quail; the querulous, fretful cedar-bird; the weird and 
smothered calling of the winds among demented trees. 

Capricious in the abundance of beauty around them, bursting 
forth in the fullness of their revelry, he heard the linnet's lay, the 
yaffle's call, the thrush's cry, the croak of frog, the cricket's song, 
the robin redbreast in the winnowed winds, the eerie wailings of the 
nightingale in piteous complaint, the dove upon the wintry bough, 
a prophetess of grief. He loved the vales, sun-warmed between the 
ancient hills; the rocks, the cliffs, the mingling sounds of nature's 
kirmess blending in euphonic song. He loved the gleams of sunlight 
bursting through the open sky, the dazzling, drifting wreaths of 
snow, the dewy warmth of April mornings. 

He saw upon the bending boughs the honey-suckle bloom, the 
grapes and pawpaws hung in clustering bunches, 'round which 
the vine, aflame with scarlet, wrapped and twined. When frosts 
and snows descended he saw with throbbing heart the grandeur of 
the evergreen that stood in stateliness above the brush and swamp, 
adorned by heavy, icy cloaks and captured sheets of rain. He loved 
the hickory's rusty knots, to which the sharp icicles clung; the marsh 
beneath the drip of leaf, the winter's blasts, the biting frosts, the 
driven sleet. He loved the sturdy oak, the stately palrn, the towering 
pine, the wind-kissed blossoms, fanned and cooled, whose bosoms 
yielded to the wooing breeze and rocked the insects to repose. 

He loved the lazy pastures and the quiet lanes, the unsullied 
brightness of the sun, the lagging sameness of the noon, the sordid 
ponds, the stagnant pools, the aimless indolence of deserted fields 
and farms, the fallen straw that shifts and varies with each changing 
wind. He loved to watch the soaring hawk upon the bosom of the air, 
above the sleepy oxen in the muddy streams — examples of content. 

Ah, yes; he loved all Nature's works, because his soul was great! 
He loved and lived and labored daily, because his heart was just. 
He drank the purity of the air, because his mind was pure. He asked 
his friends to sow the seeds of kindness and of truth. 

He lived for mankind and for friend. Our scope of words can 
not impart the meaning of the love we hold for those who in the tide 
of time have lived, it seems, for us alone. 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 35 

We do not ask what he accomplished. We do not ask what 
worldly goods he left behind. It is enough that he endeavored. 
When man has done all that he can he has not lived in vain. Though 
seeming failure be his lot, the victory is there. While some may 
say that he deserved a higher place, the lips of others may be heard 
to murmur, "It is well." 

He met with what we call success — success as he esteemed it; 
not the hoarding of gold, not the acquisition of lands and properties, 
not in literature or art, but success from its highest and loftiest 
standard, which consists of being, not possessing. In this his aim 
was keyed to the maximum. 

He won the love of all who knew him, and now his memory is 
ours. Let memory be not undervalued. It is no part of our mate- 
rial selves. It is devoid of size and height. 'Tis not a slab on which 
are written those things we would retain in mind, and yet we feel 
that memory is, of all our faculties and attributes, the chief. Through 
veins of memory flows the blood of many hundreds dead. 

Let death be not despised. It slinks away to places sequestered 
and secure, without the noise of drums, the flare of flags, the shouts 
of victory. Death meekly steals apart from living scenes. Let death 
be avoided but not feared. 

Sovereign did to others as he would have 

them do to him. Filled with the spirit of Joseph's kindness, who 
stepped from Egypt's throne to own his brothers and forgive them, 
he signified that good should be returned for evil. 

This pike-pole means protection for his home and friends. 
The salt we sprinkled on his monument represented hospitality, 
generosity and charity. The axe and wedge and beetle implied the 
dignity of labor, and the contents of the silver vessel, poured on the 
tombstone, trickling back to earth again, reminded us that there is 
no demon in a glass of pure water, and that temperance is a bridle 
made of gold. 

When living, how was he esteemed? Not second to our greatest 
citizen. He was of a philanthropic trend of mind. No common- 
place complaints or ills oppressed him; no grumblings, lamentations 
or regrets were his. He learned to reconcile himself to things as they 
must be He loved the right, he loathed the wrong, he hated vice 



36 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

and worshipped virtue. He decried dogmas that embodied shades 
of speculative truth, and asked for truth, and truth alone. His 
creed was of the highest mould — not given wholly to a single sect, 
but liberal and broad. 

I think to-day that if beyond the golden west there is a door that 
stands ajar for those who flee this orb of pain and on whose portals 
there is written, "Only for the true and just," this worthy man has 
stepped within. If in the book of golden leaves the angels write 
the names of those who dearly loved their fellow men, this Sovereign 
is Abou Ben Adhem. 

With tireless wings he flew into that great mirage — into that silent 
haven where untold thousands went before. He found a greeting 
in that better world most cordial and sincere. 

All that was mortal of a life of honest efforts and self-denying 
deeds has passed to dust. 

j pje had relentlessness of decision such 

as confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual benevolence, that 
power of command, that earnestness of zeal, that definiteness of pur- 
pose and inflexible justice necessary to a forceful character. He lived 
without an undue measure of jealousy, envy, whims or fears. His 
integrity was rugged and irrefragable. No motives of friendship, 
hatred or interest to himself could bias his opinions or influence 
him to do a wilful wrong. His actions and behavior were regulated 
by a firm conviction that all men are created equal. Nothing 
swerved him from the path of righteous duty. 

Confiding implicitly in the universality of our creed, let us believe 
that he has felt upon his brow the breath of an eternal morning. 
In the fullness of his faith in mankind's immortality, let us believe 
that his closing eyes beheld a scene of mystic ecstacy and joy that 
only the rapture of a parting soul can know. 

This monument will stand as long as marble may resist the ele- 
ments. Our memory will last as long as in the breast the heart sits 
king upon its throne. 

The complement of darkness is the light. The counterpoise of 
memory is forgetfulness. The darkness of his death is brighter since 
we have lit the fires of truth, and we, as Woodmen, wish to show 
that Memory holds its sway supreme. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




He told that quality of truth that bears the 
pith of matchless beauty. 



MY friends, for fruitful meditation have we gathered here. 
We bow our heads in silent reverence. We vow to throw 
aside the cares and travails of the non-fraternal world, and 
pay the last sad rites of brothers unto a fallen man. 

Grief's wounds can never heal. Sorrow for the dead, that opens 
daily Memory's portals, will never cease; the door of recollection 
always leads us to the grave. Sorrow for the dear departed is the 
only pain that time and years and new-found friends and changing 
scenes can never cure. 

How dear and sacred is the emptiness — the nothingness — called 
memory! How dear the love of son for father, of child for mother, 
of friend for friend! What sister would forget her brother's name, 
his life, his deeds, although his memory only serves to wring her 
heart with grief? What son would banish from his mind the picture 
of his mother's face, her tender kiss, her parting words, though mem- 
ory only pains ? What child, whose tender parents lavished bound- 
less love upon it, would bury memory in the solemn grave ? Although 
this memory often saddens at the brightest hour or surges in when 
sorrow's cup is filled already unto overflowing, we still continue 
feeding fuel to the fire of memory's flame. 

Sometimes the drooping spirit is reanimated by its reflective 
happiness. We can not let it go. We love to listen to the imaginary 
voice that rises from the grave's repose — the noiseless words forth- 
coming from the quiet, noiseless tomb. 

This memory may, in the conflict of the brain's employments, 
lose its lustre for a passing while, but in the distant future it will 
flash anew and glow the brighter for its long oblivion. Its vast, 
imposing magnitude, as the rays of memory penetrate the vista of 
departed years and steal upon the dormant sense of him who in the 
past has loved, looms brightest when forgotten and again recalled. 
Memory, victor over din and chaos, will survive the fabric of the 
world itself! 



40 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

Ah, my friends, what changes may be wrought by time! How 
sad to lose the kind companions of the long ago! How much we 
miss the love of those we knew so well and held so dear! How swift 
the wings that bear the passing years away! How keen the parting 
from a life-long friend! How bitter is the sad goodbye, perhaps for 
months, perhaps forever! How sad the separation from the loving 
souls with whom we moved! How pitiful the parting grasp, the last 
farewell, the dying footsteps, the retreating form ! 

And yet how little is this simple grief, compared to that we hold 
for those who go beyond the life of man! When Woodmen die, our 
sudden anguish can not be controlled, our convulsive sorrow is un- 
bridled, while on the cool, thin airs of night their spirits walk abroad. 
They do not pause to offer any consolation. We must console and 
soothe ourselves. We seek to make repairment of our wounded 
hearts by tears and deep bereavements, which open wider every 
wound. We should remember, "It is for the best." 

Then death is painless to the dead, and painful to the living. 
If this be true, is life preferable to death? I sometimes think it 
should not be. I can not say. 

Death! A thing from which all men recoil, may be indeed a 
blessing. We see it looming grandly from afar. The chase and 
war path may divert our course, but we journey on toward it. We 
love to be missed. We want to be freed from our miseries and woes. 

How blessed is our ignorance of the hour of death! We stand 
beside the grave and wonder when our time will come, yet who would 
willingly learn the answer? What man, however long the lease might 
be, would spend his time, like a felon in his gloomy cell, the warrant 
signed and the unappealable sentence of death pronounced against 
him ? What man would kill his own ambition, discontinue his use- 
ful works, and end the given known remainder in despair? This 
ignorance is a wise provision of the Kindly Hand that rules the sub- 
ject world. 

Through all the ages this same Ruler has sat upon the summit of 
the Universe. Before His eyes the highways of all human life are 
plain. His observation has swept the range of all creation. His 
endless vision has followed the changing scenes of life and matter 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 41 

through all the countless years gone by. He sees the struggle for 
existence made by every human being. He hears the queries of 
those clouded brains that strive to penetrate the darkness, met 
always with the responding pathos: "You are but born to die." 
He sees each generation born, he sees all generations perish; he hears 
each anxious soul, before retiring to its waiting fate, propound 
again that never-answered question concerning what is hidden in 
the puzzling mists beyond the range of sight. He so ordained that 
none but those who die may see. 

We carry hope, withal. Ambition is alive in men. We look for 
better, higher things. We know not why. Desires will never rest. 
Our wants compose a mystery. To tell us why these aching aspira- 
tions — this spur of hope that pricks the heart — there are no words 
in all the tongues of men. Once satisfied, this hope — this hunger — 
gnaws anew. Its victim longs for higher things more keenly than 
before. 

This monument, how beautiful, and yet, it may transpire, how 
futile! The pall of death is o'er the land. It may descend before 
to-morrow, engulfing all the works of man, and yet our busy little 
beings, unmindful of the Author's changing will, go heedless on. 
We grope, blind-folded, in the deepening gloom. We leave our rec- 
ords for the ages that may never come and build this monument for 
the generations that may not be born. 

We write the name of Sovereign upon our loyal 

hearts. As the purse is fuller by the gold we save and not the coins 
we spend, so the mind is richer by the treasures it contains and not 
the things forgotten. 

The members of our Order love all men, because in every man 
is a lovable something. We love our fellow Sovereigns best, because 
that something is discovered. We love the fallen comrade for what 
he represented when alive. If men could understand each other — 
could see the good and bad at once, could read the promptings of the 
naked heart — how we could learn to love the sinner and forget the 
sin. 

I know that every vagabond without is but the unkempt tene- 
ment of a lordly prince within; that in the breasts of faltering sinners 



42 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

beat sympathetic hearts; in every base and hardened criminal there 
is an undeveloped goodness; in every prodigal there are some re- 
deeming features; in every heart of steel is planted the uncultured 
germ of the holiest saint. 

Sovereign was ambitious for a better station, 

and he deserved success. Not one who conceived too much and 
achieved too little, his hopes were within the bounds of reason. His 
character was sublime. He told that qualitv of truth that bears the 
pith of matchless beauty. Endowed with genius and arrayed among 
the dauntless cohorts battling for the cause of right, he held a bold, 
unbroken front unto the common enemy. 

Contention, strife and factious clamor were strangers to this 
honored man. To him the tedium of existence was unknown. 

Although Sovereign is dead, figuratively he lives. 

The things that he performed are living. A noble impulse is not 
fruitless, a virtuous deed will never perish, a generous action does 
not die. 

was one who could not loiter. He knew no 

pause. Irrepressible in life's maddening race, relentless in his search 
for lofty thoughts and high ideals, enveloped by the rapture of a 
higher purpose, he spent no idle hours in dreaming. Reverses were 
to him but spurs to further, higher effort. Disasters only sum- 
moned his latent energies and determination. Present failure meant 
final triumph. 

He scattered with prolific hand the golden seeds, and those who 
follow in his footsteps will reap the gain. 

From morn to dusk he traveled toward that bending arch where 
twilight zephyrs breathe their impatience for the coming night and 
vesper embers fade and sink with dying day. 

He was of uncomplaining disposition and had the candid temper 
of philosophy. His lofty and generous sentiments were never stifled. 
Something in his manner, his appearance, his personality, made 

Sovereign distinguished and distinctive. Of 

splendid build he appeared the monarch of all that he surveyed. 
Cheerful and sociable, he spread the magic of congeniality. Pos- 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 43 

sessed of a happy wit and humor, he made himself a favored guest 
and welcomed visitor. 

(He asked to be buried here — this open field — where in the days 
of slavery were heard the master's fiddle and the negro's shout, the 
song of ploughman and of reaper. He cared not for the crowded 
vaults where rest the forms of kings. He longed to rest upon the 
hill that held so many memories of his youthful days — his childhood 
recollections). 

Well may his brothers cherish his reputation. Well may his 
family be proud of his name. Well may the children of the coming 
day boast of a happy heritage! 

It is sometimes thought that only heroes have their names re- 
membered by their fellow countrymen — that eminence consists in 
wealth and office — but go among the jostling crowds, the busy strife 
and hastening feet engaged in commonplace pursuits, and there is 
always found the man whom we have never known before, as noble 
as the noblest born, as brave as any hero who was ever sung or pen- 
ned or pictured. This Sovereign was such a man. If opportunity 
had ofFered, he would have fully stood the test. 

The thoughts that language might express about a Woodman's 
memory, live only in a mansion wrought of dreams — are like an 
unworked mine with tons of gold: our instruments of thought are 
far too poor to reach the richest vein. We must be satisfied if here 
and there we may be able to pick up a nugget from the sand and 
loam. 

This monument was erected in memory of one whom now we 
leave to rest in peace. The rain will not deface it. It, like his mem- 
ory, is of marble. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




He was a steadfast, true and Christian friend. 



Unreplying — voiceless — still — another Woodman has departed. 
The harmonies of the air have died away and murmuring 
night steals o'er a darkened world. We have unveiled this 
monument, erected by his favorite fraternity, in memory of him who 
nestles in his mother earth. 

The Order grows, and yet it seems the rank and file is being 
thinned — the brightest lights have been extinguished — new loves 
can never fill the places of the old. The fires of love burn out within 
our hearts, and leave them charred and cindered — yes, incurable. 

We give unto the Great Disposer a free, untrammeled soul, to be 
enthroned. If for every kind and noble deed this man performed, 
we'd plant a tree above his grave, a mighty forest soon would grow; 
if for every act of charity he did a rose would bloom above his head, 
the air would mellow with perfume; if for every generous thought 
and word he spoke, we'd place a cedar twig upon this mound, to-day 
he'd sleep beneath a monument of green. 

He was a steadfast, true and Christian friend. What more 
could we desire? With this alone, the gods of mercy will be satisfied. 

We can not see beyond the tomb where silent shadows cover all; 
we can not hear the voice of man beyond the last goodbye; but what 
to us is utter darkness — what seems to me the starless night — to him 
became the light of morning, the coming of a grander day. 

Death covers not with roof and walls, but opens wide a door. 
Sometimes our faith is shaken and we pause and doubt; we think, 
we ask, we dream. Sometimes we feel uncertain of the story of the 
world beyond. To-day we have no fear. We meet with reassur- 
ances. The idea of another life — it swells and throbs within the 
breast — is born of reason, hope and fear, and faith, triumphant over 
all, dispels the clouds of doubt. Such souls as this can not lose their 
identity in matter's worthless mass. There is a future world for all. 

We do not know which state is best: Life — with its promises and 
hopes, its loves and fears, its pains and pleasures, its lights and shad- 



48 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

ows, its ever-restless strifes and conflicts; or Death — where neither 
pangs nor joys abide, where contentment is ineffable, and where we 
can not sip from any cup its sinful sweets. No scale can weigh the 
counter forces — no mind can measure Life with Death — no one can 
say that in the balance Life will rise or Death will fall. 

Stand over his cold form and weep, since tears befit the parting! 
Was he not such a man as we shall miss? He'll know no more his 
father's smiles nor mother's changeless love. Forget him not, we 
that survive — he is among the holy dead. All those that weep, be 
comforted! 

If memory ceases in the busy marts of morn and noon, when the 
stroke of midnight falls upon the wakeful ear, it surges re-anewed. 
If tears are irrepressible, and on thy cheek their drops are gathered 
now, let them be proof of joy and not of woe. 

Sovereign was tireless and brave. He never 

wavered until a weary heart and checkened step gave warning that 
the end was near, and sinking like an infant in its cradle-bed, he 
passed away in dreams. 

What of the man, his disposition? He took counsel from the 
sober dictates of his own good judgment, and died an honored and 
respected man— outlived the fear, the possibility of meeting any 
unexpected snares that lie half-hidden in the paths of all. He 
walked around. He lifted life above a niggard, common level. No 
pitfalls fell beneath his step, nor did his foot become entangled in 
dishonor's traps. He advocated purity in the affairs of men. He 
won the studded crown of virtue, resplendent with its gloss of gold, 
and wore it on his brow with gracious smile. 

This Sovereign was a blessing to his friends. He took delight 
in innocent hilarity, in diffusing pleasure, in inspiring joy. In him 
was always discernible the fullness of a cheerful soul. His laughter 
lang with music. His beaming face bespoke the gladness of his soul. 
He found an inspiration in the happy looks of those around him. 
He never repined in loneliness. He sought the company of his 
friends — companionship of Woodmen. Participating in the merri- 
ment of others, he made felicity for himself. Along the path he 
strewed the rose and plucked the thorn, and ample proof of many 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 49 

noble deeds performed by him is living still. The world is better 
for his having lived because<he built the true realities for others that 
thrive forever and abide through every earthly change. 

He was successful in his own affairs. Being neither miser nor 
spendthrift, he denied himself no luxuries desired, but indulged in 
none of the wants of mind or body beyond his means. With wise 
forethought and discrimination he always kept within the safer 
medium that lies between the dangerous extremes. He rose before 
the beast of greed and gave the monster gaze for gaze. 

No man has ever yet unveiled the secret place where dwells the 
soul of any friend. It lives alone. You think you know him, but 
you know him not. You know his voice, his face, his walk, his man- 
ner from an outer view — you hear him speak, you know his habits 
and expressed beliefs, but yet, the query-mocking spirit which he 
himself can not divulge, remains concealed. But Woodmen know 
each other's souls as well as men can know each other. Our asso- 
ciation with Sovereign disclosed the nature of the 

inner man. But for the Woodmen of the World, this Sovereign's 
scope of charity and activity — his love of duty and of friend — might 
have remained unheeded. Animated by its enlightening influence 
and appreciative membership, his sense of justice was made richer 
than before, and discernible to us as well. 

This cold and silent stone stands guardian of his grave and dust, 
and as we gather here about this spot to think of him with tender- 
ness, to magnify, if possible, his goodness, to bury his shortcomings 
in the dark recesses of forgetfulness, we learn that the "passerby 
will pause" to read the name of every Woodman in this wedge and 
choir, when earth shall be to our closing eyes a fading shadow, 
passing away into the future, "when our eyes shall be opened to 
the brightness of the hereafter, which like a sweet and beautiful 
vision shall come stealing o'er our senses, and changing, ever chang- 
ing, shall find its fruition in a perpetual reality of joy." 

We now depart, expressing confidence that Sovereign 

is in that better forest high above, toward which we Woodmen cast 
our longing, ever-restless eyes. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




He was so young, the hopes of manhood just 
arising, that we are left confused in pondering 
o'er the reason for his taking off. 



THE river of another life has run its course between the cool 
and shadowy vales and mingles with the voices of the sea. 
He walked across the bridge that spans the depths between 
the cradle's pillow and the deepening gloom. He died while still a 
tender rose, with all its sweetest leaves yet folded. The morning of 
his life was interrupted by the hasty night, and e'er the hour of noon 
was reached, the purple twilight fell. Before the May has scarcely 
come, December has departed. He was so young — the hopes of 
manhood just arising — that we are left confused in pondering o'er 
the reason for his taking off. 

The tear-filled eyes of those in black are watered not alone by 
pain and grief, but are pervaded by a holy calm — a quiet resignation. 
Upon the softest hearts the deepest sorrows seem to fall — upon the 
tenderest loves the heaviest burdens of bereavement rest. 

We meet to-day in memory of Sovereign , a mem- 
ber of the Camp, to write his name more 

deeply in our hearts — to place above his mouldering form a monu- 
ment of stone. His virtues we extol. Upon his brow the Messenger 
of Peace has placed the fitted laurel wreath. 

He loved the purer things in life; he had ambition and determi- 
nation; with youth and health, he held the blessings of contentment, 
the pleasure of knowledge; and, for one so young, the joy of merited 
success. 

In youth, we face the East. We see alone the glorious burst of 
prospect and of hope. Ambition leads us on. We see a goal of fame 
afar. Impatiently we long to skip the intervening time. We fix our 
gaze upon a distant phantom, vague and dim. We overlook the 
present. We think that failure can not be — that we are fortune's 
favored children. With heedless waste we toss aside the gems and 
grains and shining moments; but when the form is stooped and 
bent and memory surges with its force, and age-dimmed eyes look 
wistfully upon the pathway left behind by which the days misspent 



54 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

lie dead and wasted, then for the golden hours thrust aside — for 
opportunities untaken, for every wrong that knocks distinctly on 
the soul — there falls upon the heart a sense of longing and remorse. 

But here was one who never paused to take a backward glance. 
He looked ahead. He left no scattered tares behind him. He has 
been spared old age with all its bitter recollections. And still, how 
sad to see him sink beside the way and sleep, before he reached 
ambition's point upon the road surveyed before him — to see him 
taken from the earth before the measure of his years was filled! 

Is it not better as it is ? What good is realized ambition ? What 
gain we when we gain the world? What have we when we conquer 
all? The coffers that contain our hopes are hidden in the coming 
years — the present is the space that lies between regret and hope — 
and so, to reach the point ahead, we hasten on. Yet, with the 
worthless goal attained — the object coveted for life secured — what 
is its value ? No sooner is the long-sought flower plucked than it is 
withered in the holder's hands. Then vain regrets of chances missed, 
and idle musing over loss and gain, and dread of death because of 
half-forgotten sins, bespread their shivering gloom around us. No 
longer looking forward to another bridge to cross in safety — another 
milestone on the way — amid rejoicings and regrets, we see the 
journey's end abruptly rise. Then death to youth may be a kind- 
ness, after all. 

Sovereign was spared all this. All images and 

pictures in his youthful mind — all thoughts of mastering a distant 
something, all longings for a name and fame — are now as though they 
had not been. In the depressing hush of death, they are no more. 

Upon the grave we gaze in solemn, pensive thought. We meas- 
ure with the eye the little mound, we guess how deep the casket lies, 
we wonder just how much the box around the coffin has decayed, 
or if the top has fallen through and broken in the glass; we scan the 
monument from top to base, and read the dates of birth and death, 
the age, the verse, the cold inscription — and look again upon the 
senseless clods. It is an object lesson for reflective minds — to be 
perused and conned. It fascinates the soul and brings us nearer to 
ourselves and death, and makes us better men. 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 55 

Sovereign was of splendid character — solemn 

without stupidity, dignified without egotism, quiet without extreme 
reserve. He was self-denying and incorruptible. His youthful mind, 
like a new-broke spring, was undefiled. Such lives as this preserve 
the fame and glory of our Order — they shed a lustre in the paths of 
men — make footprints in the sands. His death but lends renewed 
assurance of another world fulfilling every prophecy. 

Life has its source among the hills. It starts at once to make its 
devious and uncertain bed. It flows through woods and valleys 
green, with tufted grass along the edges of the meadow-streams. 
It meets at first no breakers in its onward way; yet while the surface 
still is calm and not a rippling wave is broken, it may leap forth into 
the yawning abysses below. This stream meanders always to the 
Great Deep Gulf of its own undoing. 

He is resting — quiet, peaceful, undisturbed; this poor, dissem- 
bling piece of earth is slowly crumbling by the ravage of decay. 

Again we might observe that neither soul nor body rests. The 
buoyant soul is wafted to celestial joy and finds supernal glory there, 
above the blue empyrean; and the deserted body, its former home, 
now tenantless, disintegrates and dies. As dust it soon becomes a 
part and parcel of the world's machinery, in departments hitherto 
unserved — a factor in the continuous terrestrial mutations of the 
restless earth. 

We say the soul will be redeemed! The Supreme Ruler of the 
universe, a lavish spendthrift with the forms of nature, wastes not 
the dew-drop or the falling flake. These mute and changing forms 
and forces never die. There is a great eternal purpose in all sub- 
stance. The water, lifted by the sun, is promised to the sea again; 
the clouds pour out their waters on the surface of the land in rain. 
They wash the hills and rocks and valleys. Through rivulets and 
brooks and rills these mangled rain-drops wend their way. In all 
the interchanging circulation one atom has not been destroyed. 
The lily-pastures, withered by the summer's heat, have promise of 
returning springtime. The Great Reclaimer bursts the petals from 
their pinnate buds and sends the autumn winds to robe it in the 
gayest colors — yet it returns to Him who lets it out for but a day. 



56 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

The prickly stem bends back to earth, and yet relenting fate will 
stoop to touch its fading form, and in another guise of beauty will 
clothe and give it life again. 

Why then should all these vaulting hopes — these burning pas- 
sions of the soul — rise not from out the dust and chaff to grandeur 
once again ? Why should the boundless lustre of that vital flame — 
the immeasurable soul — be left forgotten and forever hushed, while 
all the very sordid elements that encompassed it do merely change 
their form? The soul of Sovereign is not annihi- 
lated. 

It found the path where other souls had taken flight before. It 
passed where innocence and guilt have gone — toward the bend that 
makes the dying world recede from view. It then approached the 
dome where death-knells sound the fatal summons and vesper 
bells peal out the clarion notes of parting day. It heard the call of 
angels from the temple of the Great Hereafter, and speeding past its 
mighty threshold, the door was closed behind. 

How sadly sweet, how sweetly sad, were his declining hours! 
As beauty gloweth sweetest in its sleep, as the dew-drop's brightest 
lustre lingers after falling, as flowers yield their sweetest fragrance 
when they fade, as the gaudy sun's apparel is more richly painted 
by the western rim, as the last refrain of distant music most enchants 
the listening air, as yon clustering galaxy of stars display their gor- 
geous grandeur better when hovering night approaches day — so did 
this departed Woodman, at the closing hour of dissolution, breathe 
forth the tenderest fragrance of his being! He said: "I am con- 
tent." Sweet are the unvexed hours savoring of content! How 
pure the careless slumber of the grave! 

If from this deep, narcotic sleep our friend could rise to-day — 
could lift from off his burial box this weight of clods and flowers — 
what would his words of greeting be ? What rules of conduct he'd 
prescribe! What counsels he would give! How frantically he would 
plead with us for justice among men! 

Let Woodmen now resolve to be as fair and just as Sovereign 
would request if he were here to-day. 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 57 

Tossed into the world unknown — of infinite adventure — this trav- 
eler will meet no melancholy or pangs unfelt before. Let Woodmen 
not forget! Let all the friends of this beloved, fallen friend hold his 
memory ever near. This monument shall be our constant reminder 
when we would speak of all the good he did, we will not draw his 
frailties from the grave. 

Farewell to him whose melting heart surrendered at the touch of 
need. Farewell. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




A shining exemplar of our tenets, he was all 
that the mind could fancy or the heart desire. 



Stricken down between the noon and zenith of his journey, as 
ghosts of many years remain to roam the beaten road, when 
just beginning to enjoy the harvest of a life well spent — its 
consequent rewards — it is hard for us to realize that Sovereign 
is gone. 

Dowered with the wealth of independent thought, a doer of kind 
deeds, a speaker of cheerful words, has passed beyond us. 

Without the blare of trumpets and burst of revelry, he dispensed 
charity without ostentation. Like the iron-coated man-of-war, he 
ploughed his forward course, scornful of deviating tides or winds 
that blew. 

Kind brother, true friend, comrade, patriotic and sincere, wher- 
ever thou wert known, thy kindly character, thy gentle spirit — thy 
true, unselfish nature — hath won thee friends. Thy heart was full 
of love, that, casting its good deeds along life's troublous and troub- 
led pathway, brought sunshine to the soul. 

We bow with grace and reverence to this divine decree — in hum- 
ble submission to Him that doeth all things well. Our hearts are 
full of sorrow, and while we mourn thy departure from this world 
into another, we transfer thy name from the roll of active members, 
placing it upon the silent marble. We believe that beyond the star- 
lit skies, thy name, on parchment radiant and refined, is written in 
hallowed letters, more plainly even than upon this tomb. 

Thou didst furnish to the world the mellow tints of true frater- 
nity, the sparkling traits of genuine friendship, and the whole- 
hearted, lovable qualities of beneficence. 

A shining exemplar of our tenets, he was all that the mind could 
fancy or the heart desire. It is but just to say of him that he was 
worthy in the highest sense of our respect and love. He was a noble 
champion of humanity — brilliant, capable, clean, manly, generous 
and pure. It is in recognition of his worth that we have pinned 
upon his breast the badge and flag. 



62 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

Sovereign did not harbor hatred. Animosity in 

others but made this Sovereign more kindly and refined — more 
liberal-minded and sublime. 

No words of ours can fill the void created by his death, nor do 
his merits simple justice. When addressed to those who knew him 
best our praises are inadequate — the heart and not the tongue can 
draw the truest estimation. The heart is fitted with its golden 
strings, but tongues strike not the cords. Let strangers know that 
this, our language, is not the voice of adulation. 

The genial, amiable ! Of that rare quality of 

heart that fadeth not away! Such a man is hard to describe — an 
almost incongruous mixture of gentleness and strength, of fineness 
and force, of tact and truth, of ready assertion and yet distinctive 
reticence, of gentle persistency and natural culture that grew and 
broadened, that sobered and sweetened, that chastened and refined! 

He loved equality, justice, fairness and honesty. He regarded 
every selfish advantage taken of his fellow man as cowardly wrong 
and unspeakably cruel. 

In the measure of his own esteem he did not overrate or under- 
estimate himself, and manifested modesty in its sublimest form. 
He yearned for excellence and strove for higher things. A bonfire 
in the night of life, he made the paths of others plain. 

Long toils and hard compose the story of a life well spent, and 
yet with bravery and good cheer he bore the yoke of his misfortunes. 
Upon his brow he wore the blessed laborer's crown. Generous and 
kind, charitable and forgiving, he asked no greater pleasure than to 
share his earnings with his own beloved. 

He pressed from the grapes of adversity the wines of a happy 
life, until at last the tiring spirit dropped within him,and he sank 
upon the couch of sickness, never to rise again. 

Toward the close his fever weighed upon his eyelids; against 
the tide of bitter pains — before the stress of pitiless disease, the tears 
of eyes, the still sick-room, the gloomy faces — his poor defenseless 
mind gave way. With it, speed on, brave soul! 

Before we go let us heed the words of the Consul Commander, 
that the lessons of this occasion shall be impressed upon our hearts 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 63 

and be reflected in our lives; that we shall leave this place to-day 
conscious that one more obligation has been honored. He rightly 
said that we do not know how soon others will be called upon to pay 
the same tribute to our memory; that being summoned as we are 
from the busy scenes of life to contemplate the certainties of death, 
should "awake within us a fresh determination to be faithful to our 
chosen craft." 

In behalf of Camp No. , I now declare this 

monument unveiled. We realize that praises of his name and life 
have been uttered, that every effort has been made to fulfill the duty 
that we owe to him — the rites and ceremonies have been observed, 
and now we leave his dust and ashes to the disposition of the earth 
that made him. We pause to give assurance of protection and frater- 
nal love to those whom he has left behind. 

The Woodmen of the World are taught to appreciate progress in 
material affairs as well as in science and letters. We are said to be 
cemented together as the mortar binds the stone. We dedicate the 
material works with sacred oil, and sprinkle salt — a symbol preser- 
vative and pure, upon the corner-stone and monument. 

After such a dedication, the tongueless marble speaks the rest. 
It tells the story of Remembrance. It whispers to the early dawn, 
the holy eventide, the cooling breezes, the lengthening shadows and 
the falling shades. 

It tells us that water is a cleanser of all things — a libation sanc- 
tified by all men as a token of undying fellowship and fraternity. 

Woodcraft is free from sectarian or political affiliations, but we 
believe in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man. 

The human skull and olive branch and dove of peace are em- 
blems of the Order. Labor is represented by the axe, the beetle and 
the wedge. The pike-pole stands for protection of country, home 
and friend. The staff represents the shepherd lad who repaid evil 
with the gold of good. Salt is our token of hospitality, generosity 
and charity. 

The objects of Woodcraft are said to be fraternal benefits or 
fraternal principles, business benefits on business principles, and 
social benefits upon the highest social principles known to the moral 



64 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

law. It is a happy blending of fraternal, social and business rela- 
tions, pleasantly united into a progressive and permanent institu- 
tion. 

As Woodmen we consider it our duty — one from which we never 
swerve — to promote as far as in our power lies the welfare of each 
individual member. We take pleasure in diffusing happiness 
around us, in inspiring confidence in our fellow men among each 
other. We conjure them not to throw away the priceless intellec- 
tual and moral gifts with which they were by birth endowed. 

The tree of Woodcraft is the grandest tree that grows in the gar- 
dens of organized brotherhood. Its limbs are its arms of protection 
and peace, its roots are inlaid in beds of benevolence, its body is a 
giant of brotherly love, and its blossoms are the fragrance of frater- 
nal affection. 

Then enter thou, stranger, the forests of Woodcraft, for the door 
is open and the way is wide! Enter where the trees will protect you 
from the winds of adversity and their sheltering branches shield, 
and their great, strong arms defend you fron the storms of misfor- 
tune. 

Come thou in the glorious morning of spring. Stand beneath 
the nest of thrush or wren hammocked in the boughs, where olive 
branches spread, where refreshing streams and rivulets go rippling, 
dancing, breaking; where the outstretched wings of the dove are 
seen. These are the forests to which we invite you, where, in the 
morning's burst, the all-beholding sun appears. He banishes the 
gloom of mysterious shadows and finds the world bedewed and spark- 
ling; he lends new life to the beauties of nature in his constant jour- 
ney to the west, and the shadows grow long as he withdraws his 
galaxy of quivering golden beams and droops down in the western 
world; then the violet hue grows dim and fades and the soft and 
silent night steals o'er the arid world, and the glimmering stars and 
the great, full moon assume their vigil over all. These are the 
things that allured our Sovereign into the forests. 

We heard it said of him when he was buried here, that he should 
live in the eternal glories of his Maker; that "He who fashioned 
Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades and fixed the globe upon its orbit to 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 65 

move through space around the sun, has said that man shall live 
forever." 

We ask a question of our friends: Are all the Woodmen now de- 
parted seated in the halls of Memory. I answer, yes! If the mem- 
ory of one noble friend affords a twinkling star of pleasure in a 
world of pain, then Woodcraft is a heaven filled with joyful constel- 
lations. If a single act of charity peals out a single clarion tone in 
a sphere of silent coldness, then Woodcraft fills the Universe with 
music. If the love we bear a single brother is likened to a single rose, 
then in our Order all the world is filled with flowers bursting into 
bloom. If constant mercy is a quality of good, then Woodcraft is the 
hour-glass, exhaustless as Sahara's sands, through which the last 
and final grain will never flow. 

Let Woodcraft live, that memory's brightest lights may burn. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




In name, he is no more; in fact, he lives a 
better life than we who come to honor him. 



The strife and turmoil of a life is ended, and now we lay him 
down to sleep — a sailor on life's trackless sea. Too long 
already has he been roughly driven by the beating foam. Life's 
billows, having cast him here, receded; the roar and din was quelled 
and hushed, his faltering senses failed their office, and the death-dirge 
canopied all other sounds. A ship, unanchored, portless and adrift 
has found its harbored rest, embosomed in these hills. The snows 
of winter, spread like sails, will be as sheets unto his couch — the stars 
that guide the ships by night were made his funeral lamps. 

Just as the sun retired at twilight — a silver crescent in the west- 
ern skies — just as the muffled oars of night patrolled the waters of 
the vesper evening, the Grim Old Reaper with his scythe cut down 
the silent plant that grew along the water's edge, in all its strength 
of life and beauty. 

At night, the waning moon; at day, the blazing sun; at noon, 
the lazy-pacing clouds, will be his only guardians. 

Let not the unexpected visit of the angels who have taken him 
too much bereave us, Brother Woodmen. However full of love our 
hearts have been, however empty now the void; our grief, like 
everything on earth, should be short lived. But, for the moment, 
grief should thrive in all its fullness of expression, and therefore let 
the tears of those who loved him most be not restrained! When the 
trying hour has passed, let us be reconciled — let us survey the rav- 
ages of death and view the great machinery of destruction without 
the pangs of bitterness and dread. 

By his departure, a momentary dream was changed into a dream- 
less sleep; when he awakes, the new creation will be deathless, and 
death alone shall die. Where he has gone, in life we can not go — 
we will receive no word, no message, from his lips or pen. 

Death is inexplicable, incomprehensible, unfathomable. Re- 
morselessly it tramples over vanquished beings; it grimly gathers 
victims in its arms; it resolutely soars beyond the palings of our 



70 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

common kind. We know no more. Not even thought can follow 
death. It leaves the natural world and passes to the spiritual. A 
barrier, reaching higher than imagination's wings, divides the 
mystic two. Nothing but the wand of death can lend us magic 
power to surmount its heights and go beyond the barren hills into 
the farther sphere. 

How little do we know of life! How little of this flickering hour 
wedged in between the past and future! How strange the stream 
we call our home — its devious ways, its pools and breakers! Life 
is a stream whose unknown source is far away, flowing to a sea of 
death, where all unite and none return to tell us if the place beyond 
is better. 

And who can say that Life is best? In fear and trembling we are 
loathe to choose. This world of pain and pleasure — of buoyant 
hopes and deep despair — this hour of gladness and of grief, of alter- 
nating day and night and rising suns and shadows sinking in the 
deepening gloom; or Death, unconscious and unknowing — remorse 
and anger felt no more, without a knowledge of the joys we miss, 
obliterated even from conception of our past existence, living only 
in the sense that loving friends will keep our memories green. 

May be this life is but a night that opens to another dawn. We 
can not tell. Its mysteries have not been explained, its moods we 
can not comprehend, and yet, we cling to life with instinct born of 
love and fear. Love is the king of all emotion and memory is the 
child of love. Fear is a microbe born of love that doubt and lack of 
understanding have planted in the veins of men. How puzzling is 
it all! 

These things perplexed this Sovereign, but now, all things are 
understood. The mysteries are solved. He occupies a higher 
plane and waits for our advent. We look with eagerness and hope. 
Our expectations are unbounded. We wish for higher, purer worlds. 
We long to meet the friends who left us. Another life would be as 
naught unless we'd see those gentle souls we knew and cherished 
here. 

Pictures of memory! They need no brush, no frame, no canvas. 
They are impressed upon the mind — a visible reality. They elicit 
from realms of thought a vision limned on memory's pages. 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 7 1 

How wistfully the tear-dimmed eyes gaze on the true resemblance 
of the dear departed! These thoughts are treasures incomparable. 
Around them glisten every jewel of relationship and personal tie. 
They are more precious to the heart than the diamond mines of the 
distant Indies, or the wealth of the gorgeous East, that showers its 
barbaric pearls and kingly gold. These thoughts from the urn of 
memory are the echoes of some sweet refrain, dying away in soft and 
mournful cadences. 

Around this Sovereign cluster laurels eternal and undying. 
These garlands are for him who lies in death's hypnotic slumber, 
untarnished through the years. 

This Sovereign lost his hold on life and sank into the grave. 
Wearied of the din and dust, the soothing sponge of death was placed 
upon his furrowed brow. Clothed in the shroud's majestic dress, 
his weary bones are laid among the cold and pulseless clods, to lose 
the trace of individuality — to be united with the rocks and sands. 

was always gifted with a chivalry of attitude. 

Unpretentious, unassuming, he was often seen and seldom heard. 
He was a student of himself, with gentle disposition, gravely gay 
and gaily grave. 

By the example of his life let us endeavor to better know our- 
selves, which knowledge will protect us from the show of vanity, 
the fallacy of conceit — will show to us our insignificance. Like him, 
remember that we are not perfect, but that the virtues most desired 
are in the reach of all. 

But I would mention something else concerning him whose mon- 
ument we have unveiled. It can not be truthfully said that he was 
always full of joy. In fact he seemed at times to be a very sombre 
being. He often wore an outward look extravagantly grave — a deep 
aspect of mingled doubt and meditation. A man you could not 
always read — at times there stole across his brow a piercing sadness, 
unexplained. Indulging in his silent thoughts, he roamed through 
every chamber of a non-committal soul. He loved enchanted isola- 
tion. He longed to be alone — to move, unwatched, in solitude. 
Some so-called pleasures he abhorred, and rather liked the lands 
of hanging clouds and vanished suns and melancholy's quiet walks 



72 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

and uncollected dreams. (Oft' did he wander in the woods in 
quest of quiet self-communion to think and dream among the haunts 
of frightful desolation, to mingle with the overflowing measures of 
unrest, to walk alone into those weird and unmapped kingdoms, 
and sit until the fogs grew thick and night-throats spoke in babbling 
tongues their gossips of confusion!) 

These things appealed to him. His soul drank nature's beauties 
for its refreshment. They filled his noble heart and furnished rec- 
reation to his lofty mind. His hungry spirit was inured, attracted 
by the hushing silence, the deep depression, the gathering shadows 
and the murky gloom of fjords and fells. To him, the really true 
delights were out beyond the clamorous world, where selfishness 
has found no place, and where prevails that tranquil peace that 
satisfies the mind. 

is dead. In name he is no more. In fact he 

lives a better life than we who come to honor him. Fulfilling Wood- 
craft's highest aim, let him be long remembered. Let memory never 
fade! 

His monument we have unveiled. May it be sacred for all time. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




He gathered up the good in life and turned 
the bad aside. 



IN the forest, as the shadows lengthen and the lights grow dim, 
all is miraculous. Our eyes follow the tall shafts of the trees 
and between the branches we catch a glimpse of drifting clouds, 
of the sinking sun, sweet-beamed and shifting lurid rays. We quaff 
the soothing draughts of air and lose the terrors and the fears of life — 
the consternation of the outer world — and feel ourselves embosomed 
in a world serene. We dream of lands of changeless beauty and of 
fadeless flowers, traversed by ever-running streams. 

At such a place have we convened to-day. How sweet the thought 
of solitude, the pleasure of repose! How full of comfort and of joy, 
the woods! Seek out the undiscovered places! Find refuge in the 
wild delights arranged in their exquisite and delicious tastiness! 
Feel in your very beings the thrilling rapture of a manless empire! 
(Amid the woods! The loon's wild sound, loud and distinct; the 
watery willows and silvery birches, the deep, clear pools peopled 
with trout and bass; the stillness! broken only by the bark of the 
wolf, the chirp of jay, the cry of chickadee whose ballads fill the 
clumps of trees!) 

This is the place we chose to leave the last remains of Sovereign 

. He died, aye, he died; he sought his deathbed 

with untroubled glance, his body weary, but his heart content. 

He was a being born to die. Shall we forget him e'er he scarce 
is gone? Oh, no; say not until the world itself forgets and we by 
all the world remaining are forgotten. 

For many years this bark was madly beaten by the angry tem- 
pests; but unexpectedly the storm was quelled by magic hand, the 
threatening clouds gave place to temperate winds, and the ocean's 
surface calmly smiled that he might land in peace upon a foreign 
shore. 

At Death's approach his heart beat wildly in a tumult of gladness. 
His longing had not been in vain. It was the wanderer's homecoming 
in that cool December evening, from the long-remembered journey 
fraught with pain. 



j6 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

Now do we come — his wailing friends — in goodly numbers. 
Bereft of him whom we have held so near and dear and tender, we 
sing the lamentations that we feel. Our hearts betray their sadness 
in our songs. Our voices utter sobbing anthems that die away in 
sweet refrain. Condolence now is coarse and cruel. It is untimely 
and is out of place. It irritates our beings. For the present time 
we will reject proffered sympathy and hold it in disdain. Let no 
one dissuade us now from that we could not — would not — stay! 
We choose to while the hour in weeping — to shed the tears that force 
themselves into the eyes of those who loved. 

Let no one tell us, in our present unreceptive mood, that it is 
better. Perhaps all things are done for good — his good — our good — 
the good of all that breathe, but since we can not know the cause — 
see not the stroke of bold advantage, and understand no reason for 
the Imperial Edict which appears to us so hard and terrible, we will 
not — can not — now admit the wisdom of an unknown plan, 'till 
first we draw aside the veil that shrouds the mysteries of the future. 

Soon you and I, and these and these, will guess and grope no 
more. We, too, allured and baffled in life's labyrinth, will fall into 
the hidden pit, to meet the Keeper who will lead us to that unknown 
place where speculation ends. We will confront the real solutions 
of all the problems of the world. 

Death is the single agency to acquaint us wholly with ourselves. 
It brings repentance and humility. It almost forces a regretful- 
ness that independent action once was ours. It quickly thrusts 
before the eye a mirror that reflects the every single sinful deed. 
It makes forgotten sins remembered. 

That hope that fills the hour of death, he held. He had no fears, 
nor were the friends who placed him here afraid. They knew his 
character too well. They lowered in its grave this breathless body, 
confiding in the knowledge of his upright life. They knew that 
he would be rewarded. 

In life, this Woodman earned our honest, truest loves. He was 
of a sort to be admired. Arrayed in wisdom and immersed in thought, 
he ladened all the trees of life with virtuous fruits. Hearing and 
responding always to the signal of distress, he was the reed on which 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD JJ 

his needy brothers might recline. With careful thought and scru- 
pulous discernment he chose his comrades and companions and 
quaffed the cup of friendship. 

He heeded not the labial gossip of the calumniator, for defama- 
tion he despised. Impious perfidy and malice he decried. He 
loathed alike a libel and a lie. 

Blinded not by notions of his own superiority, he died perhaps 
believing that he was but a simple, ordinary person. He was a man 
of most unusual attainment. He stamped the impress of his nature 
on his friends and bore the badge of a favored clan in an honored 
race. He was of iron nerve and strength, timorous only of the 
wrong — a brave, a true, a devoted Woodman, of splendid talents 
and practical ideas. 

With Sovereign genuine culture was as natural 

as breath — a simple, unpretentious man, disdaining vain display, 
living in a wholesome atmosphere, conspicuous only for his qualities 
of good. He suspended judgment on the faults of others, and in 
him was well exemplified the true distinction between the critic and 
the friend. He gathered up the good in life and turned the bad aside. 

Those tears are not unmanly that fall in mourning for such as he. 
Tears are not always proof of weakness. As the mind enlarges and 
the heart expands and the soul's appreciation is perfected more and 
more, we learn to better know the virtues, and it is then that grief 
must run its deepest course, and sorrow find no cure. The truest 
type of manly strength is often inconsolable. 

Woodcraft teaches thoughtfulness. Now is the time to pause, 
and think. The hour is ripe for meditation. If you are a brother, 
Sovereign, and have spoken any words that wounded; if you are a 
friend and have ever betrayed a confidence reposed; if you are a 
parent and have, by unkind word or act, embittered or deceived the 
trustful; if, as a daughter, you have crushed the tender heart of 
mother, or as a son have bowed your father's head in shame; if you 
have caused, by thoughtless act, a pang of sorrow to the living — then 
remember that a few years hence — perhaps far less — you may 
stand above the grave of him or her who suffered where you did not 
gain. And there, as every unkind word comes surging back upon 



78 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

your mind, you will wonder how the evil spirit has misguided you — 
how you were ever tempted to betray, how you could ever have op- 
posed, despised or wronged! You will repent, implore forgiveness 
when it is too late! And if this brother whom you have abused, this 
mother whom you have neglected, this son on whom was poured the 
undeserved rebuke — these all, should they survive you, how less of 
sorrow they would feel. Indeed, how soon your memory would be 
blotted from the book of thought, except as recollections of your 
evil deeds might steal into its pages! 

Think of the little things omitted. How happier they might 
have made him! How easy might the life now spent have been ten- 
fold as sweet! Why did we, his friends, neglect him so sadly? Are 
we so selfish, thoughtless, insincere as this ? 

We know that memory has a time, a limit and a life; that gene- 
rations perish like the withering leaves and sink into the mystic 
past — repository of oblivion. The world, a storehouse of humility, 
contains the humbleness and emptiness of faded renown. Therein 
death sits in majesty as ruler. He mocks and chides at claims to 
glory. He spreads across the beds of death the sheets of generations. 

Yet memory survives! Enriching every human mind, it glori- 
fies the world. It should adorn the skies! It will outlive the voice- 
less Sphinx that, undeterred, looks out upon the desert. 

Every age has its heroes, each country its father, all nations their 
leaders. Great marble statues stand erected to their memories. 
So every Woodman is a hero, father and a leader in Love and Honor 
and Remembrance. They are our heroes. These monuments are 
reminders of the heroes fallen, of the fathers gone, of the leaders 
lying where they may not rise except in spirit. The founder of our 
Craft and Faith is leader, hero, father — all. 

In conclusion, let us be reminded that memory lives as long as 
life, and death is life renewed. 

Goodbye, brave friend! We hope to meet you in that second life 
and find a place prepared. 



A TRIBUTE TO A SOVEREIGN 




Faithful to his obligation, he lived to bless 
mankind. 



A life is lost — its throbs and thrills are hushed and stilled, the 
winds have died along the roads, the sun is dim, the clouds 
drift by, the years decay, but still the world will speed in 
silence on. We that remain stand on the verge of crumbling time. 

He lingered for some days, aware that death was near at hand, 
but under the weight of that foreknowledge his heart did not grow 
sad. His dying thoughts may be expressed in words like these: 
"I know that I am soon to leave; conscious of no intentional wrong- 
doing, I find no fear in death." Brave man that, unabashed, con- 
fronts the gates of death! Brave man that knew his life was such 
to give no grounds for fear! Uncomplainingly he endured all pains — 
with stoic fortitude suppressed the show of suffering. 

Let us recall the character of him who, resting in this sunken 
grave, surrendered life while still enraptured with its sweets — who 
in the very gloom of death emblazoned all surrounding things — that 
man whose work and worth will long survive the record of his name 
and self. Before our vision fancy pictures him descending through 
the cloudless blue. We think he's here to-day among us. In our 
imagination we can see the figure standing as it stood in life, or 
walking with that swinging gait of confidence and bravery, the eye 
that shone, the hand that helped, the footsteps of return. 

He was charitable, considerate, honest and generous, and full 
of amiability and affection. To me these are the elements of a 
proper life. He hated affectation and bare professions of religious 
faith. He loved to be, not claim. 

made a study of the nature of his friends. He 

seldom lost his balance. Equilibrious almost to a fault — his even 
poise so very changeless — his manner gave offence to none. 

Surrounded by his loving friends as death stole on, he assured 
them that in Mercy's Sea his sins would be submerged. 

He hungered only for such fame as comes of true philanthropy 
and none could blush to own. He bore with meekness every praise 
and was a comforter and judge. 



82 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

Character lives, truth is immortal, honor survives, self-sacrifice 
will earn rewards; for him, we claim all these. He rated friendship 
as the standard of eminence. In him companionship called in vogue 
the social powers most capable of good. He cared but little for the 
clink of gold, and felt a richness in the hosts of loyal friends who lived 
around him. He found enjoyment on this earthly sphere and shaped 
his actions that he might not lose the joy of higher worlds. 

Then where is he, beyond the Valley? Does light or shadow 
hang above him? He lives beneath the shining suns, and not the 
clouds and rain. All hope for welfare in another world; all longing 
for a safe hereafter; all wish to meet beyond the vale the friends we 
fostered here! 

Even if there were no future world wherein the good might live 
forever, this state of sleeping solitude is a monarch of content! How 
grand this resting in a calm retreat through all the coming years 
and ages! How matchless is this dreamless sleep, even were there 
yet no promise of awakening! 

We sit in gloom. We know not where our realm is pitched. 
We are but unmanned shadows of an unreal thing, adrift upon a 
nameless nothingness. Perhaps this sense we know as sight is but a 
vain imagining. The sense of thought and touch and matter that we 
experience in the flesh, are but delusions of the non-existing. We 
are but attributes to true reality. Conjectures are the children of 
the mysteries. Hope is our sole defense against the grave. Our 
beings are inexplicable and strange. An unseen Power has equip- 
ped our groping faculties so weakly that we can not know. Just so 
deep may we delve into thought and no deeper, for the finite mind 
can not conquer the infinite. It only confronts insurmountable 
barriers. 

Then is it strange that we should ask where are we bound? 
How safe the road? How long the journey? Again we ask, but we 
ask in vain, what 'waits us at the end ? We cry with all the fullness 
of our spirits, but hear no answers to our calls. The plaintive echoes 
are our sole responses. Our weird and solemn wailings are in vain. 

We are but mixtures of conflicting moods — now agreeable, now 
irritable; at one time captious to our friends, again complaisant 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 83 

with our enemies. We lack the faculty of self-understanding. We 
are distempered by varieties of prejudices and dislikes. We are 
petty and whimsical; are charlatans and egotists. Therefore we 
should be deaf to hasty words and blind to thoughtless deeds. Our 
views of others must be liberal. We should be slow to criticise a 
neighbor's judgment. There is no "crank," no "fool." 

The one supremely important problem for our thoughts is that 
of the soul's immortality. The frailest of all things is life, and still, 
this life is all that holds the floodgates to the future. While fixed 
in space, that part of life that thinks that it thinks — that believes that 
it believes — that knows that it knows, wonders if there is such a 
thing as thought, belief or knowledge. These mysteries are solved 
by death alone — that which may plunge us into nothingness forever 
or bring us unto Him who giveth lasting life. 

Man is an unseaworthy caravel, adrift upon the ocean — death. 
Baffled by the power of thought, so narrow in its pale and sphere, 
just given oar and scope to make more difficult the unsolved prob- 
lems, he rows an aimless course. His views are warped by omens 
never.yet divined, and, overwhelmed, he often bows before the shrine 
of strange portents. 

We can only view the solemn and uninterrupted procession of 
birth and death. What man can tarry here and see unmoved the 
constant, shifting and eternal change? What pathos and solemnity 
are awakened! How true that every living being who yet tra- 
versed the silent way has asked the same perplexing question and 
paused to listen for the answer, never made! 

Is man a bubble on creation's waves to be inflated by a thing 
called Hope? Must he be blown by antic winds and know not 
whither he is going? Are his desires to any purpose? Is his poor 
spirit so neglected that while he's floating on the water's course 
beneath the sombre clouds of fear, the dashing breakers ruin all? 
Yes, man is such a bubble! Just as his vanity has gathered all the 
rainbow's tinted shades and copied all the evening's colors, by a 
slight disturbance in the stream, he loses all his radiance and charm, 
and, punctured, disappears! 

Ah, hope; what colored garments thou dost fondly weave! What 



84 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

gaudy rainbows thou canst paint and picture! What promises, never 
yet fulfilled, are spun like warp and reel from your delusions. You 
spread across the verdant plains mirages to deceive. 

As on the heated sands of Yuma, parched and dying, the traveler 
dreams of babbling brooks and green oases; as on his deathbed the 
expiring seaman thinks the waters lash the piers and fancies all the 
ships asail; as on the plains the expiring chieftain's glamoured view 
portrays the pale-face giving up the forests; as toiling peasants 
tread the fields, while on imagination's wings they go to dwell with 
lords in mansions; or as the foundling babe sinks low and grasps 
the pillow in its fevered clutch, and thinks that on its pallid face is 
stamped the farewell kiss of mother — so does this nameless thing 
called Hope — this basking in the profitless but sweet, this vain 
chimera of deceptive mockery, this bold dementia of fallacious Hope, 
shine out sublime and grand! Through all the grim eternal rough- 
ness it fills the endless years with promise — with something waiting 
just beyond us. Some say these dreams will prove untrue and are 
enamored in phantasmal minds, but all admit that hope remains, 
and our belief — anticipation — lends joy to faith behind deception's 
guilty screen. Misled by its deceiving snares we willingly remain 
its victims until the smiling mask of hope, unguarded, falls. Let 
hope remain, and all its promises be filled! 

Oh, this incessant yearning for a future life! Entrenched and 
barricaded in our beings, hope is never routed from the human kind. 
There is no door where, entered, hope is left behind. In all the walks 
of life we find its workings electrifying and enthusing men. 

Some years ago, with hope his fervent star and guide, Sovereign 

launched himself upon the sea fraternal. He 

set the sails toward the island where the forest stands; he disem- 
barked and stepped ashore and quickly walked among the trees. 
Wandering into its depths he met a new-found people there. They 
welcomed him and called him "Sovereign." He gave the promise of 
allegiance and became a member of the forest camp. Blindfolded, 
all his life had been as night until the star of Woodcraft shone, and, 
like Titania, with Oberon's love-juice on his eyes, he loved the things 
he first beheld in waking. Unrelented, unabated, that illusion is 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 85 

abiding still. He vowed he would be champion and defender to 
the weaker members of the tribe. This obligation he fulfilled by 
every action, word and deed. He was taught to be impressed by 
the sighs of the distressed and dying, to help — to aid. 

He regarded as a sacred thing the virtue of the wife or daughter 
of a Woodman, and would guard their mothers and their sisters as 
he would his own. 

Faithful to his obligation, he lived to bless mankind. When the 
storms of passion raged around him, he poured oil upon the troubled 
waters. He rescued the defenseless and down-trodden brother, and 
tendered every service to uplift the fallen and support the weak. 

Sovereign loved the Order, and we will therefore 

say a word concerning it. The limbs of our forest are intertwined, 
the boughs of every neighbor tree are grown together, the roots are 
locked in a firm foundation, and though the storms may rage and the 
earth may tremble, united thus together, no trees can fall until the 
strong protecting arms of those surrounding have been broken. 
This is the lateral support of Woodcraft. 

The maintenance of peace and plenty, the perpetuity of our 
happiness, the common welfare and the general good, depend en- 
tirely on the love of man for man as taught by us and our kindred 
orders. It is this love that makes the champion triumph and the 
hero live. It is this love for which the soldier suffers and the martyr 
bleeds. 

This Order is a blessing to the poor and an advantage to the rich 
when death invades its ranks, and the loving heart pulsates no 
longer, and the strong arm of the robust Woodman falls helpless by 
his side. 

To these bereaved ones gathered here it is a consolation. Their 
eyes, once reddened by the flow of tears, look calmly upward where 
his gentle spirit winged its way to find ennobling joy — where hate, 
nor lust, nor greed, nor passion reigns; triumphant — coursing 
through the gleaming heights, in radiant freedom, is his home, where 
pearls and gold are strewn with lavish hand and where the colors 
of the rainbow never fade. 

To keep his memory fresh before us, this Order placed a monu- 



86 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

ment above him, which today has been most fittingly unveiled. 
Many snows will fall and many seasons pass away before this stone 
will crumble. 

But Time is king of all destruction. The sands dug out to make 
this grave may be, themselves, the ruins of gilded vaults and hanging 
arches erected in the long ago. The mummy, sinking into dust, is 
blown away, the column falls from its pedestal, but Woodmen mon- 
uments will stand as long as any of the works of man. 

This monument is a record to the passer-by. It tells a tale, 
"though mute and motionless." It writes on history's page a letter 
to the sons of men. In years to come, it will have lingered as the 
steadfast rock, a vestige, unimpaired. 

Therefore, our friend, farewell! With reverence we place a 
chaplet of magnolias on this mound. 



A TRIBUTE TO TWO SOVEREIGNS 




These Sovereigns were loyal members of 
their Camp — were honest, generous men — 
were all that noble men should be. 



From the ever-shifting throngs, one by one we each must pass; 
from the ever-surging masses, day by day a face is missed, a 
voice is stilled; hour by hour new souls are freed to hear the 
divine chords sounding their celestial symphonies. 

As if by magic, earthly things spring into existence; they make 
their impress on the things surrounding; they leave their influence 
for better or for worse, and go away and are forgotten. 

How final, how sudden is the change! The morning dawns, but 
when the evening shadows deepen into darkness, the day is dead. 
The shot rings out, the hills resound with interchanging echoes, but 
soon the noises die. The thunder roars, the vales reverberate the 
noisy conflicts — 'tis over in a moment. The lightning flashes, the 
mirrored waters radiate its form, but now how quickly gone! The 
storm bursts forth, the terror-stricken beast retreats, but, lo, the air 
is calm again. The tempest breaks, the elements rend havoc to the 
trees, but soon is hushed — the leaf falls softly in the water's edge, 
unruffled and unscarred. 

So man is born, vainglorious and proud, yet delititious; for him 
there is one day the cloud, one day the sun; the tempest now, the 
rainbow then; one day a sense of all-embracing joy, again the utter 
blackness of despair; and then at last, the hovering night — the bend- 
ing dome of death and darkness — the great, the cabalistic end of all. 

Such is the story of mankind, born for the flickering moment, 
striving to leave a lasting impression, losing all and everything in 
the dim vista of ages, mixed with the pitiless changes of matter. 

Such was the story of these honorable Woodmen, Sovereigns, 
and . That they may not be for- 
gotten soon, we placed these marble shafts above them. As far as 
human ingenuity can devise, they stand time-proof against the tooth 
of age, the razure of oblivion, the dusts and mists to gather in the 
future years and distant generations. 

As they endure, Old Father Time rolls on uninterrupted. No 
hand can stay his onward march. Empires rise and fall like flitting 



90 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

shadows idly playing. Though lands be swept and oceans heave 
and islands tremble, Old Time remains supreme. He makes a tomb 
of every hill, a grave of every valley. He quells the throngs of glo- 
rious visions and of happy dreams that daily rise and overflow the 
heart, and buries in the general gloom all thought and hope and life. 
Within the bosom of this universal sepulchre — this bed of patriarch 
and seer — are found the arts evolved by toil, but buried in the long 
ago. He scatters all the gathered genius of the centuries into a 
trackless waste and void. 

Time is the only tomb that never yields in any form its buried 
dead. Its wings are tireless and its heart is steel. A thing unmoved 
by melting pity, Time, lord of every earthly thing, alone survives. 
Time is the only one and absolutely merciless yet impartial king. 
It has been king forever and will never be uncrowned. Its throne is 
called Eternity. With wasteful hand, without remorse, it scatters 
wreck and ruin. 

But Time will little dull the love that Woodmen hold toward 
their own departed. We revere and respect them. We entertain 
this admiration according to our own developments, and as Wood- 
men, our powers of appreciation have been whetted to the keenest 
point. Woodcraft cultivates the sentiments of love and teaches 
memory in its grandest form. 

We gather all that memory gives and hold it as we would a rose, 
to fondle and caress, inhale its fragrance and adore it — to fill the 
empty days with love and jewel hours with joys. It scatters like the 
boundless winds about a restless world. It reaches every Woodman's 
home, however far away. It whispers of the works of men, well- 
nigh forgotten now. It thinks of those whose names have been 
omitted from the book of fame. This memory holds aloof the man 
who left no worshippers behind. The unknown graves hide thou- 
sands in their worthless dust whose noble deeds, if known, would 
fill with shining stars imagination's sky. 

Memory offers an incentive to the highest happiness. It flashes 
like Aurora's light upon the ebon world around it; again 'tis like 
the radiant star whose fervent glow shines down upon the centuries 
forever. We find not in the gallery of the years gone by a fairer 
picture than that crayoned on memory's canvas. 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 9 1 

Forgetfulness steals o'er us unawares, as runs the river of a dream, 
and ere long, the thoughts that occupy the mind have crowded out 
the memory of the friends that were; but such, of Woodmen is not 
true. Oblivion's tide can never drown it. We deem not dead those 
living lights who stepped within the golden door of lambent life be- 
yond. They are remembered. Our fair imaginings and sleepless 
thoughts keep memory alive, and lend its presence to the hours of 
night, to gladden or to grieve. It tunes the ear to the song of birds, 
the ripple of the running water, the sound of the gentler voice.)' It 
recognizes worth. 

When the heart, the citadel of life, is conquered and the power 
of resistance gone, the grave's enclosure is not death. We do not 
end in its terrestrial embrace, nor have these Sovereigns died because 
their cares have faded in the peace of slumber. It is not so. Do 
they not live in every mind, in hearts of wives and children ? We 
gave camp honors to the dependent ones to-day, reminding them that 
cool, refreshing, pulseless death means endless rest. 

Do we complain at the established order of things ? The forks 
and prongs of every path lead to the grave. The streams of glory 
only flow into death's chilling sea. What living man would dare to 
have it otherwise ? All men are drifting on a common stream, pro- 
pelled by common gales, moving irresistibly in that boundless ocean 
where currents never change direction and where no flying birds or 
floating branches denote that lands are near. 

And why these monuments ? The Woodmen of the world adopt 
this motto: "No Woodman shall lie in an unmarked grave." We 
have been faithful to the trust. No Woodman, known as such, has 
ever been neglected. No longer must we seek in vain to find the 
grave of a departed comrade. A stone points out the place. We 
honor them as we would have them honor us. ( , 

For this we find our precedents in history. All peoples have 
been in some respects the same. We carry out a custom known to 
man and practiced in its many fashions, which has been but a means 
of commemorating the virtues and perpetuating the memory of those 
deemed worthy by their fellow men. 

The test of worthiness depended largely on the national ideals — 



92 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

to honor, power or ambition. We cross Sahara's desert sands and see 
the Pyramids of Egypt that all the modern world beholds in wonder- 
ment. We see the great Hall of Columns at Karnak, built by the 
Pharaohs and Ptolemies, standing as enduring monuments to all 
succeeding generations. We see the Colossi of Munoph at Thebes, 
serene and vigilant, that keep their tireless watch on times and em- 
pires. We see the stupendous Sphinxes of Gizeh, sculptured by the 
kings of the Fourth Dynasty, standing as gigantic pillars in the edi- 
fice of memory. We see the Jerusalem Temple of Solomon, and 
Nebuchadnezzar's Restoration of the Seven Spheres — a wonder of 
the world. We see the Tomb of Cyrus the Great, the Tributary 
King of Persia, as yet resisting the ravages of time. We see the 
Chares Colossus at Rhodes, vying in grandeur with the Tower of 
Babylon. We see the Mausoleum Monument at Halicarnassus, 
said to be the first structure ever ercted in memory of a human being, 
denoting Artemesia's undying love. We see the Temple of Diana at 
Ephesus, the Capitoline and Cloaca Maxima, the .massive walls of 
Norba and Signia and the Sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus. We see 
the Mummy Pits at Memphis, Behistun's sculptured rocks, the 
Mounds of Yucatan, the Etruscan Tomb at Corneto, the Column of 
Duilius, the Barrows of Norway, the Vatican form of the Roman, 
Augustus, and the statue of Pompey! 

And Woodmen monuments! They are the evidence of love, and 
testify to the character of those to whom they are erected. They are 
something more than tributes to renown. These two, these Woodmen 
are entitled to the proof that we shall not forget. This proof, until 
to-day, has been concealed, but now has been unveiled. 

These Sovereigns were loyal members of their camps — were hon- 
est, generous men, were all that noble men should be. We ask no 
more, and truthfully can praise them. 

Their wives and children are the wards of Woodmen whom we 
shall ever guard and love. We will defend them against all harms. 
We are their truest, lasting friends. We hope that this they fully 
realize in every sense. We will not hesitate to go where duty calls. 

To them, and to the world at large, "Let Memory survive." 



A TRIBUTE TO THREE SOVEREIGNS 




TACET CUW 



Those mortal coils that bound them to their 
human forms have loose' d their holds forever. 



The present is the proof of reality. The past is the record of 
events. The future is the hope of the unborn years. Life is 
the summary of these three — these attributes of existence. It 
begins with blindness, then blindness becomes growing wonder, then 
wonder becomes understanding, and understanding is immortal hope. 
This hope remains until the final scene is closed and life is written 
on the luminous records of memory alone. 

It is the voice of memory calling now. We will respond because 
of love. Memory is that love that lives beyond the object of its ten- 
derness — beyond the reach of years. Its fulsome censor spreads its 
sweet perfume along the way that we pursue and sheds its light upon 
the aisle, around the altar and above the shrine to which we bow. Its 
effulgence shines with incandescent radiance upon the glowing years 
— upon the noon-day splendor of the present and the historic em- 
brace of the past and gone. 

Our grief for faded, withered love should be a holy grief, of min- 
gling pain and joy. They are rejoicing in another world, while we 
are grieved in this. This is a solace for our tears — a balm for sor- 
row's suffering. 

Can we complain that they have died ? In all the gardens of 
the earth there blooms no deathless flower. We are God's chosen, 
favored creatures, and have a life beyond this sphere. The mighty 
trees that shade these graves will fall and know no resurrection; all 
other beings change their forms, but we find life eternal in the distant 
realms, we know not where. 

Sovereigns and and 

have gone. Their dying eyes disclosed the glowing gleams of hope, 
and from their trembling lips that spoke the last farewell to earth 
there fell the words of faith. 

How strange, dear Sovereigns, is that sentiment, when memory's 
chimes peal forth their tender messages! Remorse, desolation and 
despair — these are but naught in memory's measures; it locks within 
its sacred realms the joys and pleasures of the past — sweet reminis- 



96 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

cences of the hearthstone's happiness, unceasing love of husband, 
father, brother, son; remembrance of their magnanimity — bold, 
courageous, indomitable, forbearing — granting honesty of purpose 
and goodwill to all, forgetting faults, remembering virtues, gentle, 
kind and tender around the family fireside — they loved their neigh- 
bors as themselves and lived for those they loved. 

Those mortal coils that bound them to their human forms have 
loo'sed their holds forevermore — from slavery's pitiful restraint their 
souls were liberated — from bondage they are free! Like pardoned 
prisoners severed from their balls and chains, they fled the captive 
walls. 

Now that the winter of bereavement has run its chilling, sobbing 
course, the spring of memory wreathes itself in radiant smiles again. 
The overwhelming burst of grief becomes a quiet, holy joy. Our 
unscarred faces brightly beam because the storm has died away, our 
brows are garnered by the gentle tears of recollection. 

Now are we brought to the realization that beyond the rosy tints 
of sunset, behind the golden hues of day, there is a charming, peace- 
ful valley that drinks the diamond dues of morning; that 'mid the 
silent hush of shadows there flows a wondrous stream, on the surface 
of whose sparkling waters bright diamond crystals glitter like gems 
in crowns of kings; and as these disembodied spirits feebly stepped 
upon its brink, we all believe they entered gilded boats of justice, 
sailed through the shades of limbo's port, and standing there before 
the Sovereign Commander of the Universe, joined in the choir of 
angels' voices, chanting in melodious chords, 'mid wings of seraphim, 
and chimes of cherubim, "Nearer, My God, to Thee; nearer to 
Thee." 

Departed Woodmen, if by the drift of some strange providence, 
your beings, too radiant for our mortal views — unseen, as sunset 
veiled in night — are hovering here about us now, or if you soar above 
the immortals' loftiest pinnacles, wilt thou not watch us with thy 
tenderest care, look down into our hearts and guide us, direct our 
footsteps, gently lead us ? We are but unmanned substances, adrift 
upon an unknown stream, and before the pendulum of time shall 
mark the passing of another fortnight, perhaps that never-ceasing 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 97 

torrent will bear some other Sovereign hence, tossed by occidental 
foaming billows into the realms of Hesperus — from the stirring 
scenes of life's vicissitudes into the arms of peaceful sleep. Before 
another camp convention more Woodmen may stray from the for- 
ests to join you, and when in June of the coming year our Shepherd 
calls us here again, more homes will be draped by veils of mourning, 
more hearts will be sorrowful and sad, more forms will lie beneath 
the pines o'er which the star of Woodcraft shines. 

If this afternoon I could array before you in physical form — in 
material substance — the many transcendent virtues possessed by 
those beloved men whose lives to-day we cherish and commemorate — 
could regale your ears with the music of unspeakable tenderness of 
widows and loved ones whose burdens they lightened, whose labors 
they lessened, whose griefs they assuaged — too sweet, too mellow, 
too deep for human utterance — no words of mine were necessary, but 
in arrayed admiration you would turn your eyes to the scene and 
mingle your voices with the joyful expressions of enduring gratitude 
to the Grand Creator of the World that in His Infinite Wisdom he 
has seen fit to instill into the hearts and minds of the members of this 
Order the principles of Justice and Brotherly Love. 

The world at large, cold in its self-exaltation, eager in pursuit of 
wealth, madly seeking through commercial channels to attain the 
things material, perhaps cares naught for our symbolic rites and cer- 
emonies, but those who do abide among us and heed the lessons we 
observe, derive from life its grandest blessings. 

Kind Sovereigns, be true to Woodcraft, and you can not then be 
false unto yourselves. Respect the memory of the dead, and you may 
hope to be remembered. Speak not an unkind word of him who, 
voiceless, can not make defense. Remember only every good. For- 
get the sinful deeds. 

Adieu, dear friends, until we meet together in the Forests high 
above wherein indeed each man shall be a Sovereign, and where the 
soul itself will be unveiled unto the world, that all may read and 
know. 

Long live these marble monuments, the products and the symbols 
of remembrance! 



AT DECORATION 




This is a sacred place, a glorious day — the 
golden hour of recollection, the time for glad- 
ness and for joy, for memory and tears. 



AT DECORATION 

Today we come to the woods again, bringing back our native 
hearts to love of Nature. Creation smiles on every hand; we 
find enchantment in the groves, amid the shades, beneath the 
trees, where, tinted by the sinking sun, the timid daisy grows beside 
the cowslip and the yew. The air is redolent with the spicery of 
temperate fruits — the pine, that strives to pierce the purple canopy 
of day or reach the princely hierarchs, twinkling in the dome of 
night. 

Let the soft winds play in the woody dells and the violets wave 
among the steeps, and the dew-drops minister their healing balm to 
wounded vine! Cloud not this splendid day of decoration! Let 
sunlight shine and gladness ring and drooping May-pops hold their 
heads erect and listen! This is a sacred place, a glorious day — the 
golden hour of recollection, the time for gladness and for joy, for 
memory and tears! Let every hillside, exultant with its beauty, 
smile! Let every herb breathe memory! Let chaliced flowers fill 
their cups with dancing beams! Make every grave a cairn! Our 
love of nature leaps in response to the new-born joy of a Southern 
spring. To-day we sail on wings of joy! When memory's mantle 
falls in draping train, enfolding day, the hearts of Woodmen swell. 

We decorate the grave at every Woodman's marble column, on 
this the sixth of June — the birthday of the truest Woodcraft. These 
flowers will soon fade, but memory, fadeless, is eternal. New wreaths 
of roses will be brought at each succeeding sixth of June, long after 
every one that brings them now and lays them down with tender- 
ness, is prostrate in the grave. 

These Brother Woodmen! they have gone to meet with those who 
went before them — not locked forever in their prison vaults, but 
gone to gain acquaintance with the sages of the past. How much 
the price to hold communion with them all! To hear from Old 
King Solomon the story of the Masons' Temple; to meet with Bru- 



102 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

tus, Cassius, Dionysius; to cross the Rubicon with Caesar; to speak 
to Buddha, Bramah and Confucius; to hear from Egypt's Queen the 
story of her great devotion, from Sappho of the unrequiting Phaon; 
to watch the quivering, love-kissed lips of Verona's maiden, Capulet; 
to hear the wailings of demented Lear, or meet abroad the ghost of 
Hamlet's murdered father; to compare the hearts of Nero, Robe- 
spierre and Richard; to hear soliloquizing Cato or Demosthenes' 
Philippics hurled again; to see with Plato the Vision or Er; to learn 
from Homer of the Sun-god's anger; to hear from ^Esop the Phryg- 
ian Fables, from Xenophon of the Cyrus of Romance, from Hesiod's 
breath the tale of the Winter Winds, from Thucydides the history of 
the funeral of the slain, from Pindar's own description to see the 
breath-fire of Chimaera and frowning hills of old Parnassus; to 
kneel at the shrine of Aristotle, or sit at the feet of Plato! How glo- 
rious to be in such associations, to meet the peoples of the ancient 
times, to learn again the story of the days that were! To trace from 
their recitals the progress of the life of man; to go beyond the dis- 
tant past — behind imagination's bounds, so far that earthly records 
are extinct — and know the peoples of the generations, as though the 
world were but a day! 

From this dark background of human history come many of the 
sublimest teachings of the human race. We know that in ages vastly 
remote — too distant for the mind to grasp — that nations, peoples 
and governments had already become venerable with age through 
prehistoric generations, and when the curtain first arises to admit our 
view, we see the primitive races within our knowledge possessing 
culture, refinement and civilization, and advanced in the arts and 
sciences. We see vast migratory movements of those distinct in 
character, complexion and physiognomy, engendered by a love of 
freedom and a regard for the welfare of the races of mankind, peo- 
pling the virgin continents, and migrating toward the Occident to 
escape the oppression of tyrant kings. This mutual regard sup- 
planted gradually the barbaric tendencies. In later years, within 
our own convenient history, a new found world was offered to the 
East by exploring seamen. This continent was a virgin forest, in 
which was planted this mutual regard, now well developed into 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD IO3 

stronger ties, and called fraternal love. It is the culmination of the 
years — the product of the seeds implanted in the hearts of cruder 
men. 

We find the evidence of fraternal love, undeveloped and uncul- 
tured, displayed by Hamitic, Semitic and Aryan peoples from the 
early dawn. These teachings have been well preserved — have grown 
until they have become a part of the very beings of to-day — and we 
find embodiment and accumulation of the grandest teachings of them 
all in the lessons of Fraternalism. 

In disseminating these precepts, our Order but exemplifies the 
doctrine of fellowship, on which the success and prosperity of nations 
depend, equality and justice a substantial part. We find these 
wondrous lessons in the Valley of the Tigris, on the water of the 
Euphrates, in ecclesiastic Nineveh. Again we see them in Phcene- 
cian culture at the foot of the Lebanon Mountains; we see them on 
the Messopotamian Plains, exemplified by the patriarch — Abraham; 
we see them in the balmy regions of the Caspian Sea and on the snowy 
ascents of the sheltering Pyrenees; we see them in the language of 
the prophet, Zoroaster, spreading through the multitudes of Indo- 
Iranics; we see their presence in a measured degree in the nomadic 
tribes of aboriginal Turania — in the countless hordes of Xerxes as he 
crossed the Hellespontine Bridges to the shores of Greece; we find 
their practitioners seated in the Chariot of Garlands as it rolled on 
the Plains of Doriscus; we find such lessons in the story of the Greek 
Hermes, with his winged sandals, and the Arch-god Appollo, with his 
twanging bow. 

We see some lessons of benevolence in the myths and fables of 
ancient Troy; again we see their teachings in the legendary gods 
personified; from the ecclesiasts, who consulted the Oracle of the 
Delphian Shrine and interpreted the omens from Apollo by the per- 
fumed breath of the Templed Cave; from the priests of old, who lis- 
tened for the death-calm voice of the Pelasgian Zeus in the rustling 
leaves of the sacred oak. 

We find the fundamental principles of charity and mercy, that 
later became our Fraternal Love, in the religious mythology per- 
taining to the physical universe — the sun, the clouds, the stars, the 



104 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

winds, the elements. We find their presence in all creeds and all 
denominations — from the first Armenian to Mohammed, from 
Rameses to Cleopatra, from wolf-nursed Romulus to Imperial Cae- 
sar. They filled the lives of Solon the Lawgiver, and Pericles the 
Statesman; of Socrates, who drank the fatal hemlock, and Pythag- 
oras, the seeker after knowledge; the ideal republic evolved by Aris- 
totle, and the doctrine of pre-existence sung by the poets of Immortal 
Plato. We find them in the laws of Quintus Hortensius and Gaius 
Flaminius. 

Likewise we find among all peoples a commemoration of the vir- 
tues of the dead, in accordance with their standards of morals, and 
often the immortalization of the deeds of those who possessed the 
greatest power — too seldom to those whose lives were consecrated to 
the cause of humanity, to the stoics of nations or the martyrs of 
liberty. 

Down through the ages came these teachings, and we have gath- 
ered in the harvest planted by the centuries. We call it Fraternal 
Love. 

Organized fraternity! How much for the people it is doing! 
Until the past few years it was a thing unknown. Then rose a few 
high-minded men, who spoke in voices like the earthquake's over all. 
They crystallized the sentiments of Fraternal Love into fraternal 
rituals. They bound together man and man. 

The founder of the Craft that teaches Love, Honor and Remem- 
brance, stands to-day a true philanthropist, and it is due to him that 
we have met to-day, in Love and Honor and Remembrance. 

In every forest is a fountain waiting for the lips of thirst — the 
hungry soul, the eager heart. The forest feeds receptive minds. 
In the mountain range of Fraternal Love and noble deeds, this Order 
is a lofty peak, from which the smiling rays beam down upon the 
little hills around it, and from whose mighty sides there flow the trib- 
utaries of the streams of good. 

It teaches Memory — that which adorns the forest better than the 
sun. The sun gives light and succor to the living tree, but soon decays 
the fallen logs; memory sheds its lustre on the living and spreads 
above the dead a light that petrifies and keeps. It rests its form upon 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD IO5 

the pedestal of thought. Returning good for evil, it does not 
barter wrong for wrong — does not repay injustice with revenge. 

Among the many millions dead, alas, how few are now remem- 
bered! Yet some will live in memory of their fellow men through all 
the tides of time where records may survive. Those few whose deeds 
and works were bequeathed to us, their grateful benefactors, still 
gleam in undiminished brightness through the years. 

It is apparent to our senses that man has an inherent love of life. 
It is not the pleasure of experience, for he often faces untold woes. 
It is the work of nature — the instinct of self-preservation. All man- 
kind battles for existence. One can not bear the thought of losing 
his identity and sinking into dust and ruin, and as he contemplates 
the endless interchange of mother nature's elements, he holds his 
own individuality as high above all other things. As death ap- 
proaches he grows more confident that something comes as death's 
attendant, to guide the soul to shores of safety. He is convinced that 
death is but a chapter in the book of life — a furlong of the lengthy 
highway — the close of an act in an endless drama. 

Death! a word that goes resounding down the corridors of time! 
That made of us the noblemen we are — that builded nations and 
uplifted men! 

Death in its walkings has been displayed to every people. Some 
see the cross-bones and the human skull, some see the grim and 
and gruesome Reaper who wields the sickle red with blood. Right 
thinking people consider Death to be the fulfillment of a promise, 
the visitation of the hand of God. 

Review the ideas of other peoples: we find the Norseman fear- 
ing Death, that came to him as a dark, engulfing cloud, sweeping 
down and taking men into its folds; to the Hebrews the Angel Sam- 
mael stood orderly to God and on command traversed creation with 
his sabre; the Talmudists believed that the sight of Sammael brought 
instant dissolution; again we find in Italy, lurking even in the hills 
of Rome, a hungry woman, who in waving garments dashed about, 
descending here and there upon the doomed. In Aryan India was 
the dreaded Yama. In Greece was the dying gladiator, whose soul 
escaped through his many wounds and went to High Olympus, or 



106 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

dropped like a rock through the Shaft of Avernus to the prison of the 
Titans in the bottom of Tartarus. 

And yet their ideas of memory were, in a measure, similar to 
our own. Power, however, rather than virtue, was the chief ideal, 
the thing to be extolled. Their marks of memory are tributes rather 
to ambition than to the qualities of good that we, as Woodmen, most 
adore. 

And we are right! Where are the laurels of the ambitious, when 
they have worked for self alone? How vain this wish for power, 
glory, grandeur, wealth! They do not deify the living, and what 
do they avail the dead? The tallest column in the world may be a 
tribute to ambition. Great tombs are built in memory of those 
unworthy of the name of brother. Temples where the sculptor's 
art and painter's skill were spent, have been erected to the unde- 
serving. And yet, in obscure graves, where wooden head-boards 
fall and rot, we find the dusts of those who merited our deepest loves. 
They are forgotten ruins of the habitations that once have harbored 
kindly and resplendent souls. 

Such men are those we honor now — whose graves we decorate 
with flowers. Their monuments are sufficient indications of their 
resting places, and are substantial proofs of memory. They mark 
distinctly every grave. What more could be desired? 

Dum tacet, clamat f He speaks though he be silent! These 
tongueless stones can speak no words, and yet they tell a splendid 
story. Through them shall pass the tides of many tender memories. 



AT DECORATION 




There is no light that glows so clear, 

No sun so bright and shining, 

No sentiment so sweet and dear 

As memory's repining. 

For when the bitter grief has fled 

And we review our sorrow, 

We find that loss of friend to-day 

Gains memory to-morrow. 



AT DECORATION 

This afternoon we heard the gentle wafting of the Woodmen 
burial songs, floating through a buoyant medium, coming 
upon and overwhelming us, in memoriam, of thoughtful 
souls to solitude retiied. 

Memory! tranquil, treasured and intangible; memory of those 
we've loved and lost, those whose manly forms and faces to-day we 
see again before us; young men, noble men, knightly men, gentle- 
men — at one time full of eager hopes, inspired with laudable ambi- 
tions, filled with infinite tenderness for these relatives and friends, 
possessed of the kindest fraternal love for our devoted brotherhood — 
gone from our midst forever. That solemn voice brought back no 
echo — our plaintive roll-call they answered not. The Angel of Death 
had previously summoned them and they responded one by one; 
yielding up life's hopes and promises, surrendering mortal pangs 
and pains, they followed Him to the Infinite Kingdom in the regions 
of the Great Beyond. Their places in our halls are vacant, lament- 
ing homes see them no more. They calmly, coolly met the future, 
with faces thoughtful but serene. 

Material objects of this world became to their sight but fleeting 
shadows, drawing away in the darkness of oblivion, and their senses 
dulled, they crossed that cold and cruel river that separates us from 
the Unknown Shore; and there again, their eyes re-opened, they did 
behold a shining vision — Olympus' high celestial light — yes, a pa- 
geant scene so divinely beautiful that the stars that crown supernal 
night will shine to them no more — will lose the halo of their bright- 
ness in the dark recesses of the universe below their glittering sphere. 
Some of the rarest flowers that ever gladdened earth have been trans- 
planted into the gorgeous garden of immortality. In faltering ac- 
cents we express our deepest adoration. 

And yet we seem to feel their soothing presence here to-day — 
majestic essences of the spirit's self. We think we hear their death- 



110 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

calm whispers, like the rustling leaves of Dodona's oak, descending 
through the radiant gap that memory opens 'twixt earthly scenes 
and supernal view. With this our broken spirits are consoled. We 
think their pulses beat anew, the sparkle of the eye returns, and we 
in vivid fancy fondly dream they've come to us again! Imagination 
plainly pictures them as moving in our Camps once more! These 
thoughts pervade our inner beings — they thrill our souls with rap- 
tured ecstacies — they permeate the air we breathe to-day and sanc- 
tify its mellow sweetness. 

In sacred veneration do we beings, still instinct with life, convene 
today; not to mourn in tones of grief and anguish their transitions 
into Life, not to fill the airy realms with futile tributes of regret, not 
to plunge our guests into the pits of deep affliction, but to revere their 
memory, to speak of their virtues, to honor their excellent names! 
Not that their dead human senses can appreciate these solemn rites, 
not that their deaf ears can hear the trembling notes of song we 
utter, not that their closed eyes behold the mingling joys and sorrows 
depicted by these tear-stained faces, but because they subscribed to 
the glorious principles of illustrious Woodcraft — to the cause of 
benevolence and harmonious brotherhood. 

In the green meadows of Woodcraft we met them, together we 
roamed in the pastures of friendship, in unison we drank from the 
rollicking rivulets that rippled beneath the cerulean skies. There 
did we roam, in the glorious mornings of springtime, when the trees, 
made sweet with the fragrance of flowers, called Nature's sleep into 
life anew; when the sap of the oak was awake'd from its slumber 
and covered the landscape with a green robe of spring, and as the 
dormant call of nature's voices re-arose and perfumed blossoms re- 
bedecked the winter's barren wilderness, there did we Woodmen 
enjoy a seclusive communion and a blissful companionship, hearts 
to hearts and souls with souls. Beneath the azure sea of heaven, when 
the vesper sun in dim eclipse its twilight mantle spread abroad, 
where nature's workshop wantonly entangled the luxuriant foliage 
of the boughs with the matchless beauty of bush and vine, where in 
unrivalled prodigality and profusion are weaved the countless myr- 
iads of intertwining shapes and forms, there came forth the honest, 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD III 

sturdy Axemen, to meet in the trysting-places of friendship, unmo- 
lested, uninterrupted, undisturbed by the wild vexations of the bus- 
tling world. There did we learn to appreciate their kindness of 
heart, to recognize their hitherto undiscovered qualities, to compre- 
hend their emotional sorrows. Thus did we find them humanity's 
champions, their lives made beautiful by the practice of charity, 
their souls imbued with the splendor of justice, their hearts envi- 
roned by a spirit of brotherly love, and their minds aglow with the 
light of eternal fidelity. 

Tendering their sympathies at the bedside of suffering, in life 
did we find them day by day — their hands were stretched forth to 
relieve the unfortunate, and fleeing as swiftly as the noble dove, the 
emblem of the peace of Woodcraft, we saw them go to uplift the 
fallen, to aid the weak, to assist the needy, to visit those whose lace- 
rated hearts were bleeding, forever the bearers of sunshine and glad- 
ness to homes benighted by shadowing gloom, and aiding at all times 
to dispel those clouds that darken the lives of men. 

My brothers, from the fundamental laws of nature we learn that 
every earthly material substance has a mission to perform and a pur- 
pose to subserve. The mightiest sun that blazes in space and the 
tiniest twig that grows about the footstone of the humblest pauper, 
has each its function to fulfill. Be it but a dainty violet born to 
flourish in the forests, it rears its form in proudly arrogance, gives 
forth its fragrance to the winds, then droops its head — and dies. Ev- 
ery man that ever breathed the breath of life had an influence to 
exert, a destiny to reach and an account to render unto his Maker. 
In the brief space of life's flickering moment the soul is judged for 
all eternity — its fate is sealed for all time to come, and its destiny 
remains unchanged throughout the endless cycle of the ages. At 
least these are the lessons taught us. Nothing is firm, nothing is 
certain, nothing is permanent — yon distant planets, orbs of space, 
may court existence on today and meet destruction on tomorrow. 
In life we are in the midst of death, and when our Sovereigns reach 
that undiscovered home elysian from which no traveler returns, we 
are consoled by the vivid consciousness — the confident belief — that 
all of them discharged the labors outlined and destined by the hand 



112 UNVEILING TRIBUTES 

of fate, and their life-works ended, their duties faithfully performed, 
their earthly missions well fulfilled, without a murmur each with- 
drew, laid down his arms in eternal surrender, and in the all-subdu- 
ing peace of thraldom found repose. O'er their hallowed graves 
may the winds of heaven whisper hourly benedictions. Where 
death's concealing casket draws the mantle of mother earth about 
each lifeless form, the hollow, mocking stillness of their sepulchres 
will breathe a doleful requiem, "If aught inanimate ever grieves." 

And yet these Woodmen have not died! They waited in the 
earth below — the ante-room to Life and Lodge Superior. They 
gave the pass-word, sign and signal, and entered where no death 
can go. There shall the soul of man live on — live on and on and on — 
until infinity itself becomes a sightless molecule in the roll of passing 
time; and though the lapse of silent years may soften somewhat our 
pathos of grief, yet so long as memory's radiance adorns the heart 
of man, so long shall their names and their memories be first in the 
hearts of surviving Woodmen; and on the marble monuments that 
tower above their heads shall be indelibly inscribed their reverential 
names, and our wounded, aching hearts shall find a healing balm 
forever in the clarion sounds and silvery tolling of the forest bells. 

Old age and youth are buried here — this charming public rest. 
How much we love the feeble man who banishes repining thoughts 
and lets contentment's sun shine down upon his honored head! 
How much we love advancing years, when in his colored locks the 
hand of time has sown its threads of silver! How much we love the 
aged eye-brows' lingering gray! Again, how brave is youth — the 
gladsome months, life's merry spring, the vim and vigor of a growing 
force, with confidence that, self-reliant, dreams only of success! 

In this silent City of the Dead are monuments of marble, granite, 
bronze and brass. They are mementoes of affection and respect. 
We see rare blossoms as they scent the air from the plants that loving 
hands have placed about these emerald swards. They keep the 
tufted surface green above the silent sleepers. But greater than these 
monuments of stone — sweeter than the fragrance of the pink carna- 
tions — are the tributes which our pulsing hearts would lay upon 
their tombs. Greener than the wreaths of roses tastily arranged 



WOODMEN OF THE WORLD 113 

before us, are the mental chaplets we would weave to crown the brows 
of those who are not dead, but sleeping! 

The spirits of our living brothers send up the golden links of love 
to catch the inspiration of the other spirits in the far beyond. As 
thought recalls the tender past, the unseen smile, the familiar form, 
the well-known voice of him who is no more, the sympathetic tear, 
because of re-awakened memory, courses down the cheek. 

Petrific memory! It has no bounds! It is a power irresistible. 
It is an Atlas, bearing the world upon its shoulders! It is immacu- 
lately pure! It turns its own leaves swiftly backwards, with a sure 
and never-resting hand. It reproduces every scene — recalls the 
things that were the brightest, loveliest and best, connected with 
our absent but not forgotten friends. 

Farewell, brave souls! We leave you to the God that made you. 
We must leave much to Faith, content to sing with Sydney Lanier : 
"Oh, would that I could know what swimmeth below when the tide 
comes in." 



DEC 2 1909 



<"0 PV «-»«* to CAT QiV. 

DEC, 3 j 1909 



